First bars inspected in MTR’s Sha Tin-Central line shoddy work probe found to be substandard
- Lawmaker Michael Tien says insider told him first steel bars selected at random for testing had come up short – results he called ‘alarming’
The first three steel bars inspected by Hong Kong’s rail operator in a probe into a shoddy construction scandal at Hung Hom station have been found to be substandard, according to lawmaker Michael Tien Puk-sun.
The former railways boss said an insider on the job had told him three bars randomly selected as the first for testing had been erroneously shortened and were not properly screwed into couplers as required.
The investigation is seeking to get to the bottom of allegations about substandard construction on station platforms for Hong Kong’s costliest ever rail link, the Sha Tin-Central line.
The MTR Corporation is in the process of breaking open at least 80 sections of platform at the station for the HK$97.1 billion (US$12.4 billion) link, to see if structural safety has been compromised.
Tien, a former chairman of the now-defunct Kowloon-Canton Railway Corporation, called the initial results “alarming”.
“As far as I was told, MTR staff used ultrasonic machines to detect the length of the bars, and they found that all three were not fully screwed into the couplers, with a gap of about 10mm,” Tien said. “In other words, somebody cut short these bars.”