Underground explosions help shape new MTR station at Admiralty

Every day in Admiralty, next to the United Centre, a large crane lifts and lowers a small metal cage at least 100 times into a deep shaft. Inside, workers, mostly men from Nepal, are transported to and from their workplace some 50 metres underground.

The cage can hold no more than six and it's the only available access, save for the precarious-looking stepladder bolted to the granite running down one side of the shaft wall, available to those fit and brave enough to use it.

"It gets very busy at lunchtime," said Stephen Jones, the MTR's senior construction engineer for the Admiralty site.

The actual construction work is being carried out by Kier-Laing O'Rourke-Kaden, a consortium of three contractors. Below, a crew of 60 works around the clock to excavate thousands of tonnes of rock, making way for the new Admiralty station, Hong Kong's first four-line interchange.

When it is completed in 2015, the MTR Corporation's South Island East line will arrive deeper underground than the current Tseun Wan and Island lines. The seven-kilometre line will be the first to extend metro service to the city's southern district, serving the 121,000 people who live there and shuttling an estimated 46,000 there for work. And the three-kilometre West Island Line, due to be finished at the end of this year, will provide service to 200,000 people who live or work in the area.

By 2020, when the link between Sha Tin and Central is due to be completed, Admiralty will be a major transport hub for the city, an interchange of four railway lines with four new platforms connected by a new escalator network, a new concourse and a new entrance, said Michael Bezzano , the MTR's engineering planning manager for the site.