History of Highway Austral (9)
Chiloe and Aysen make up an area of 135,000 Km that constitutes 1/6 of the continental Chilean territory. This area of the country existed in practical incommunicado with the rest of the country before the construction of highway Carretera Austral. The 68,000 inhabitants of the local towns and villages remained virtually isolated until 1985. The isolation was due to the lack of roads and he maritime and aerial access to the region did little to resolve the problem of isolation, due to the difficult geographic and inhospitable climate conditions.
In the 50s and 70s fruitless efforts were made to construct road access.
Not until 1976 with the government of Augusto Pinochet was the project for the Carretera Austral initiated.
The highway crosses one of the most accident producing zones in the world to its geography. Due to the isolation and natural obstacles, from virgin forests, glaciers, swamps, rivers, valleys, and impenetrable forests, added with the lack of human and material resources. All this elevated the costs of the infrastructure required a considerable amount.
These were the obstacles that nearly 10,000 members of the Military Work Corps faced in order to open access to the region, which created 1,240 km of the longitudinal Austral highway ending at O’Higgins Villa near the fields of ice in the south. There was an additional 229 km of roads created crossing the highway.
Over a period of 20 years there were 3,086 meters of linear bridges were erected. A total of 4,082,344 meters of cubic soil were removed and 7,955,618 meters of cubic rock. More than 500 kilos of explosives ere detonated, as well as 27 camps were installed.
The MWC worked under very difficult weather conditions and complete geographical isolation, along with 8 months working below zero and 10 months of rain.
The first 1,250 km were practically constructed without machinery. Heavy machinery was introduced only after the members of the MWC created access to the most difficult part.
In the 10th region there were twenty-one communities benefited by the highway these are: Lenka, Choica, Las Areanas, Puelche, Contao, Roecha, Mansano, Pichicolo, Rio Negro, Hornopiren, Cholgo, Poyo, Llancara, Buil, Leptepu, Santa Barbara, Chaiten, Puerto Cardenas, Villa Santa Lucia, and Villa Vanguardia.
In the 11th region there were sixteen communities benefited by their access to the rest of the country. These are: La Junta, Puyuhuapi, Villa Amengual, Villa Maniguales, Villa Ortega, Coyhaique, Villa Castillo, Bahia Murta, Puerto Rio Tranquilo , Maulin Grande, Puerto Madal, Chile Chico, Cochrane, lago Vargas, Puerto Yungay, Tortel and finally Villa O’ Higgins.
The execution of the labor along with the arrival of new inhabitants has produced a cultural change with the local population and has created hospitable conditions for new arrivals. The creation of the highway has allowed more services to reach the inhabitants such as education, medical care, running water, electricity, etc., which has improved the quality of life in the local population.
After 20 years and 200 million dollars invested the work ended on March 1996, which ended the last leg of the longitudinal highway joining Puerto Montt with Puerto Yungay. Later in the year 2000 the stretch between Puerto Yungay to Villa O’Higgins concluded (102 km) which are the most remote cities in the great work.