Archive for ‘mainland cities’

13/12/2019

Drivers and passengers have lucky escape after hole swallows cars in southeast China

  • Sinkhole suddenly opened up near subway station in city of Xiamen but no one is killed or injured
  • Taxi driver whose vehicle was swallowed up says he and his passenger were able to pull themselves free unaided
The hole opened up at a site in Xiamen. Photo: Weibo
The hole opened up at a site in Xiamen. Photo: Weibo

Two cars have been swallowed by a hole that opened up in the ground near a subway station in southeast China.

It is the latest of a string of ground collapses involving subway projects in mainland cities this year.

The 500 square metre hole opened up just before 10pm on Thursday near Lucuo station in Xiamen, a city in Fujian province.

The city’s subway operator said no one had died or been injured in the accident and the people in the two cars had been able to get out on their own.

The accident also caused water pipes to burst, flooding the station.
No injuries were reported after the incident. Photo: Weibo
No injuries were reported after the incident. Photo: Weibo
The road and station were temporarily closed after the accident, but normal services resumed on Friday morning.

One of the cars swallowed was a taxi, and the driver told Beijing News he had been driving along the road when he suddenly found the vehicle falling into the hole.

The man, surnamed Chang, dragged his passenger free and they were able to climb out of the pit unaided. He said the car had not been seriously damaged.

Three people are still missing after a similar accident in the southern city of Guangzhou earlier this month that swallowed a truck and electric bike.

Five workers were also killed in the eastern port city of Qingdao in May in an accident at a subway construction site.

Source: SCMP

17/09/2019

Residents flee homes as subway tunnel collapses in China

  • Hangzhou subway operator says water seeped into underground construction site
  • Zhejiang’s capital was scene of subway collapse that claimed 21 workers’ lives in 2008
A yellow cloud engulfs buildings after a subway tunnel in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, collapses. Photo: Pear Video
A yellow cloud engulfs buildings after a subway tunnel in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, collapses. Photo: Pear Video

Homes in a major city in eastern China were evacuated on Wednesday after water seepage at a subway construction site caused a main road to cave in and cut a gas main.

Authorities in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, said dozens of residents feared for their homes as buildings cracked and swayed from the cave-in.

Videos posted to the Weibo microblogging network showed yellow smoke engulfing the neighbourhood as the road fell below street level. Authorities said Hangzhou’s gas supplier managed to close off the mains.

Hangzhou Metro Group, the city’s subway operator and the company overseeing the network’s expansion from four lines to nine for the 2022 Asian Games, said on Weibo that water seeped into a tunnel that connected two stations in the centre of the city, leading to the collapse.

The collapse took down a four-lane road in central Hangzhou. Photo: Pear Video
The collapse took down a four-lane road in central Hangzhou. Photo: Pear Video

That caused a hole under the carriageway and took the pavement down with it. Hangzhou Metro said homes around the site were cleared and authorities were monitoring for further danger.

It was not known how many residents were affected, but no casualties were reported.

Most residents were put up in a nearby school until accommodation could be arranged, the City Express newspaper reported, adding that several truckloads of cement were poured into the hole.

Eight Chinese killed as road collapses near subway construction project
The road collapse in central Hangzhou was the latest in a series of subway construction accidents there – some of them deadly – in the past decade as China races to expand its urban rail networks.

In November 2008, 21 workers were killed and 24 were injured when a tunnel Hangzhou’s Line 1 collapsed beneath an eight-lane road and river water rushed in. A court sent eight people to jail for terms of between three and 5½ years for negligence at the site.

Two years later at the same place, a truck driver died and another was injured as a pit collapsed.

In 2016, four construction workers were killed when mud flooded a pit at a station on Line 4.

In 2008, an eight-lane riverside road in Hangzhou fell in on workers building a subway tunnel, killing 21. Photo: AFP
In 2008, an eight-lane riverside road in Hangzhou fell in on workers building a subway tunnel, killing 21. Photo: AFP

A cave-in similar to Wednesday’s collapse overturned a truck at a construction site near Hangzhou railway station this month, but no one was injured, Hangzhou Metro said.

According to the China Association of Metros, by the end of last year, more than 5,700km (3,540 miles) of urban railway had been built in 35 mainland cities, of which more than a third – 2,100km – was completed since 2015.

Source: SCMP

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