Print

Mail

wiki links

MRT damage to airport runway causes delays

Construction on the Neihu line of the Taipei City Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) System damaged runways at Sungshan Airport early yesterday morning, setting off alarm.

At around 3am, airport staff noticed a bump on the runway surface, as well as water bubbling up through the cracks in the runway.

Upon investigation, it was decided that the bump had been caused by the tunnel-digging for the Neihu line of the MRT. The construction is taking place directly under the airport.

The bubbling affected approximately 1,900m of the airport's 2,650m runway. The bump was 2m long and 1m wide.

Officials decided that the tunneling method that is being used in excavation for the Neihu line had created pressure that caused underground water to seep up to the runway.

The construction slip-up took over three hours to resolve, with the airport returning to normal operations at 7:20am. Nineteen flights were affected by the incident, with some being delayed for over an hour.

Yeh Yung-ching (葉永清), a Civil Aeronautics Administration Sungshan airport official, explained that the situation had arisen because of rushed construction on the MRT during the night.
This story has been viewed 1831 times.