Inspection work questioned after even more shoddy work unearthed on Hong Kong’s Sha Tin-Central link
- Highways Department announces four more steel bars on Hung Hom station platform found to be substandard
- Former rail boss Michael Tien says some of the recently discovered faults should have been easy to spot
The quality of supervision during construction on Hong Kong’s costliest rail project was called into question again on Saturday, after more shoddily built reinforcement bars were found in the walls of one of the stations.
The Highways Department announced on Friday evening that four more steel bars on the Hung Hom station platform for the Sha Tin-Central link were found to be substandard, bringing the total number of faulty bars to 10 of the 24 coupler connections checked.
In the worst case among the newest four, a bar near the station’s eastern diaphragm wall was found to be screwed only 9.4mm into its coupler, far short of the benchmark.
According to their manufacturer, at least 40mm of each bar should be screwed into its coupler, and anything less than 37mm is deemed substandard.
The other substandard bars reported on Friday had 33mm, 35.34mm and 36.65mm insertions.
Former railway boss Michael Tien Puk-sun, also a legislator, cast doubt on the quality of the inspections done while construction was under way. He noted that four of the 10 problematic bars so far were at the top of the slab connecting the eastern diaphragm wall — an area where he said problems should have been easy to spot.