Round-the-clock toil to save this road in Oman from ever encroaching desert sand

Muscat: Teams of workers toil round-the-clock to constantly push the sand back from this highway in Oman.
The 33 kilometre-long Al Jawabi Al Suwaih road connects 20,000 residents and 15 villages with one another, but is constantly shrouded in sand.
Municipal teams are permanently stationed along the route to ensure the road, which also has no lights, is safe to drive on.
The road, located in the south Al Sharqiyah Governorate, also gets flooded in several places along its length when the rains come.
“Al Jawabi Al Suwaih is the main road connecting the state centre with a number of coastal villages,” said Engineer Hamad Al Ganboosi, a resident of Jalan Bani Bu Ali.
“It is used by the residents in their daily commute to and from the state centre, as well as by fishermen who use the road to transport their fish to the central market in the city.” said Al Ganboosi
At times, seasonal winds blowing from the south to the north dump sand onto the road, leading to its closure.
“The road is located along the area that experiences seasonal winds, which leads to the continuous movement of sand on both sides of the road from May to October,” said Abdullah Al Hajri, Director of Jalan Bani Bu Ali Municipality.
“The municipality provides equipment so that sand can periodically be cleaned off the road.”
“The South Al Sharqiyah Municipalities Directorate is carrying out periodic maintenance work on the road, the most recent of which was in May 2014,” said Engineer Mahdi Al Zadjali, Assistant Director of the Department of Technical Affairs in South Al Sharqiyah Municipalities. “It is a long road, and maintenance includes the areas on the road affected by digging and other issues. Our work depends on the available financial resources.”
Residents have resorted to finding other routes whenever there are strong winds.
“There are proposed solutions that have been discussed in the municipality, including the idea to plant trees on the sides of the road to act as fenders and reduce the amount of sand that cuts across the street, but we are still studying this,” said Al Hajri.