Three cars and one truck tumbled into a four-storey-deep construction site yesterday when the road surface next to the site collapsed into the hole that's being dug.
The road collapsed into a construction site located on Lane 156 off section one of Kangning (
Hundreds of residents were immediately evacuated from the area, local Chinese-language media reported.
The section of road that slid into the hole was estimated to be as big as a badminton course.
Although nobody was injured in this accident, a number of apartment buildings on Lane 156 were left with cracked walls after their foundations were partly hollowed out.
"I heard a huge sound, then the power went off. I thought it was a big earthquake. So I ran out of the bathroom and didn't even have time to pull up my pants," said a resident, surnamed Chen (陳), who lives in one of the buildings that were damaged.
He added that many residents have long noticed that their buildings were affected ever since work started on the nearby construction site.
"Some buildings even started to lean slightly. But the construction company completely ignored the problem after we went to talk to them," Chen complained angrily.
In response, however, some representatives of the company that is developing the site -- the Cheng Chi Construction Corp -- yesterday said that the foundation of Lane 156 was already fragile before the excavations started because the Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), the Taipei Water Department (台北自來水事業處) and the Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) have all buried elec-tric cables and water pipes under the road surface.
Meanwhile, Chen Wei-jan (陳威仁), director of the city's Bureau of Public Works (工務局), inspected the site yesterday morning and established a special task force to investigate the case.
According to the director, his bureau has borrowed 1,000 sandbags from other sections of the city government in order to strengthen the road structure's foundation.
The bureau's director also stressed that it would be safer for the residents of buildings around the excavation site to stay away from their homes until the repair work is completed.
"The construction work will be temporarily halted until the cause of the accident is found," the director said.
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