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Revelation: What makes La Mancha Negra so difficult to cure?
Since 1986, a mysterious black substance called "La Mancha Negra (Black Dirt)" has appeared on the roads of Caracas, Venezuela. The substance was initially seen as a minor problem, but over time it became an urban crisis that could not be ignored, resulting in multiple traffic accidents and the tragedy of many lives lost. How did this happen?
La Mancha Negra was first discovered on an old road where workers were repairing the 30-year-old asphalt road. At first, this 50-meter-long patch of dirt did not attract much attention, but over time, its scope began to expand, and it once covered up to 13 kilometers of road.
This substance is characterized by shrinking or expanding when environmental conditions change. It has been observed that La Mancha Negra expands rapidly in hot and humid environments and shrinks in cold, dry conditions. It particularly likes the uphill stretches outside tunnels and airports. Its sticky texture made roads extremely unsafe and subsequently caused a series of traffic accidents.
By 1992, 1,800 people had died due to La Mancha Negra. By this time the phenomenon had spread throughout Caracas. Faced with such a serious public safety problem, the Venezuelan government claimed to have invested "several million dollars" in the investigation and even consulted experts from the United States, Canada and Europe.
To combat the problem, the government tried flushing La Mancha Negra with water in 1994, which they believed was a mixture of oil and dust. However, this method is not only ineffective, but also creates new troubles. Subsequently, the government also used cleaning agents and re-paving the road, but neither of them showed any results. Eventually, the government poured large amounts of powdered lime on the dirt to "dry it out," which temporarily worked but led to roads becoming dusty and causing air quality problems for motorists and local residents.
La Mancha Negra reappeared in 1996 due to insufficient maintenance, lack of rainfall and the poor condition of local vehicles, and it happened repeatedly in the following years.
Cause analysis
La Mancha Negra was described as a greasy black substance about an inch thick, as sticky as chewed gum, and locals described the covered roads as "smooth as ice." Experts speculate that the phenomenon could be a mix of dust, oil and various organic and synthetic materials.
In 2001, a newspaper report stated that a report stated that La Mancha Negra "is a mixture of old engine oil and highly corrosive brake fluid", but the conclusion was still that "after 14 years of research, no one knows this stuff" what it is, where it comes from, or how to get rid of it”.
Cause hypothesis
Many theories attempt to explain the cause of La Mancha Negra, but there is no definite conclusion yet. Initially, there were suspicions that sewage from nearby slums was flowing underground into the asphalt road, causing chemical reactions that could damage the road. However, Venezuelan transportation ministry officials believe the fouling has nothing to do with the quality of the asphalt.
The most accepted theory currently is that La Mancha Negra was formed when countless old cars with oil leaks sprayed their fluid on the road. One expert believes it forms when dust buildup on the road mixes with oil leaking from cars. The problem is amplified by the fact that many residents drive older cars due to cheap local gas prices.
The impact of politicization
In 1992, amid political instability during President Carlos Andrés Perez's term, his political opponents were accused of spreading oil on roads in an attempt to discredit his leadership. By 2001, with Hugo Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution, La Mancha Negra once again became a political tool, with the then-mayor claiming that the opposition hired homeless people to spread the substance in plastic bags at night. .
Through a historical review and in-depth analysis of the causes, we cannot help but ask, why has this phenomenon still not been satisfactorily resolved after so much research and multi-party efforts?
