Pavements

A tanker truck transporting bitumen caught fire on the road near the village of Beden in the direction of Shiroka Laka, where asphalt is being laid. Firefighting teams, as well as the police, responded to the signal for the incident, which took place shortly after 5 pm.

The City of Athens is exploiting the drop in traffic resulting from lockdown measures amid the coronavirus epidemic to forge ahead with delayed maintenance and construction work across the capital.

Three independent construction engineers consulted by BIRN, however, advised caution when drawing any definitive conclusions on the reasons why particular buildings collapsed.

'Not construction grade'

Scenes from the Albanian coastal city of Durres after a 6.4 magnitude earthquake. Photo: BIRN/Geri Emiri

For over four decades, an award-winning craftsman working in western Turkey has been making the world a more beautiful place one tile at a time.

For the first time in two years, Turkey saw increasing dynamism in its construction sector for two months in a row, a report from the Turkish Ready Mixed Concrete Association (THBB) revealed on Nov. 8.  

Work is underway to uncover a colossal mosaic, which was found during an illegal excavation in the Lapseki district of the northwestern province of Çanakkale in May and evaluated as a 1,500-year-old artifact. The 120-square-meter mosaic dates back to the late Roman and early Byzantine periods.

Athens has been allowed to fall into such a state of disrepair that minor corrections longer suffice to disguise the lengthy neglect of the city and its infrastructure. The city has been suffering for a long time, partly due to the protracted economic crisis, and it is often hard to believe it is a European capital.

A street in Şanlıurfa, where historical stone houses have been restored and turned into workshops, has become a popular spot for local and foreign tourists visiting the historical southeastern city. The workshops on mosaic, wood carving and silver processing attract the attention of visitors in the street where colorful images emerge.

After nine years of hard archaeological work, visitors to southern Turkey will soon be able to see a huge intact mosaic some 1,300 years old with their own eyes.       

Today, a new repair of the ''Trakia'' highway begins. The place is the "Tsalapitsa" road junction, on the 112th kilometer of the highway. The asphalt pavement will be changed.

At different stages the road links will be closed. At first, from 08:00 am to 8:00 pm today the Sofia - Tsalapitsa connection will be closed.

A bypass route will be provided.