New research underway with NBRO to identify safe urban trees: CMC – Breaking News

Colombo, June 21 (Daily Mirror) – New research to identify safe trees in Colombo is underway by authorities to ascertain the danger posed to the public as recent bad weather has mainly led to the collapse of trees which were not before. identified as risky, learns the Daily Mirror.

Commenting on the status of pre-identified risky trees prevalent in the city, a senior Colombo Municipal Council official said most cases of tree falls reported recently were those identified as non-risk trees.

When contacted, CMC Commissioner Bhadrani Jayawardena told Daily Mirror that a new project was underway with the collaboration of National Building Research Organization (NBRO) to identify risk-free trees in the city.

According to the commissioner, most of the recently reported cases involved trees uprooted due to strong winds and their condition was not old or decaying in the trunk.

“Out of approximately 100,000 urban trees, we checked 1,000 and found 500 with problematic conditions. And 200 of these trees have been identified as high-risk old and decaying trees that need to be felled as soon as possible, work on which began last October,” she said.

So far, the CMC, with the help of the State Timber Corporation, has removed about 160 at-risk trees from roadsides and public areas and about 30 more remain to be felled.

“The problem began when trees that were not identified as at risk by either the authorities or the public began to uproot and fall. So we had to check the roots of the least risky trees to detect future dangers.

During examination, it was found that most of the safely fallen trees were barely holding on to the ground with few roots, as much development and digging for pipe laying works, etc. had taken place. had damaged the roots of these trees. The help of the NBRO was therefore sought to identify these trees safely,” the commissioner said.

When contacted, an NBRO official said it was initially conducting a visual identification search of city trees suspected of posing a risk to the public and had not yet filed a report, which would require more time.

The official added that special high-tech machines are needed to conduct sophisticated research on trees safely to examine their roots and subsoil condition.