A landslide on the southbound lane of Freeway No. 1 that damaged two cars caused bumper-to-bumper traffic for more than three hours from Badu (八堵) all the way to Keelung yesterday.
No deaths or injuries were reported and the damage to the two vehicles was minor, the National Freeway Bureau said.
Hsu Cheng-chang (許鉦漳), director of the bureau’s Northern Region Engineering Office, said the incident occurred at the 4.6km marker on the southbound lane at about 6am.
PHOTO: YU CHAO-FU, TAIPEI TIMES
He said his office moved quickly to close the outer lane and the shoulder at 6:13am and dispatched construction workers to clean up the debris.
REOPENING
The lane was not reopened to traffic until 9:14am, by which time cars had lined up all the way to the entrance to Freeway No. 1 to the north of Keelung.
Hsu said workers had to remove about 160m3 of mud and rocks that had fallen on the freeway.
The incident brought back memories of a massive landslide on Freeway No. 3 last year, in which four people were killed.
Hsu said yesterday’s landslide occurred on a side slope structure made of sandstone, adding that the surface of the slope was fastened with shotcrete, a cast-in-place concrete wall.
“It [the slope] is not a dip slope and therefore is not geologically prone to landslides,” he said.
He added that it was not on the bureau’s watch list.
REGULAR INSPECTIONS
Hsu said the bureau had completed regular inspections of this particular slope on Dec. 28, adding that nothing abnormal was reported then.
The bureau will call on the help of experts to help determine the cause of the landslide, Hsu said.
Based on early observations, Hsu said, water had trickled through cracks in the massive rocks, causing the soil to subside.
Low temperatures in recent days could also have caused water to freeze and weakened the ground structure, he said.
Bureau Director-General Tseng Dar-jen (曾大仁) said his office had installed surveillance systems on 32 dip slopes along national highways.
The bureau will also complete a comprehensive inspection of 118 other side slopes by September, he said.
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