Construction crews yesterday morning laid the first pier foundation for the Kinmen Bridge (金門大橋), the National Freeway Bureau said, adding that it is confident that the bridge would be finished by 2021.
The bridge would connect Greater Kinmen (大金門) and Lieyu (烈嶼, also known as Little Kinmen), the two main islands in the county, the bureau said.
It would span a strip of sea whose bed is on average 7m below the surface, it said, adding that in some areas the seabed is about 20m below the surface.
The geological complexity has made it impossible to lay the pier foundations using steel sheet piles, so the construction crews used the steel cofferdam method, the bureau said.
This was the first time the method was used by the bureau to lay a pier foundation, which took two months to complete, it said, adding that it should be able to lay the other pier foundations faster.
The bureau in March laid a foundation pile on granite.
The bureau yesterday explained the challenges of applying the steel cofferdam method.
The crews first installed jacketed steel pipes as a support base before beginning the construction, it said.
They assembled the steel cofferdam on land before lowering it to a designated depth using 12 large hydraulic jacks, the bureau said, adding that divers worked 3m to 9m below the sea surface to install bottom boards for the cofferdam and seal the plates between jacketed steel pipes.
Crews then pumped in concrete to form a 1.5m-thick bedding at the bottom of the cofferdam before pumping out the seawater trapped inside the structure, it said.
The cofferdam had to withstand buoyancy of more than 1,000 tonnes and tidal effects twice per day, the bureau said, adding that the crews installed six jacketed steel pipes and buoyancy-resistant steel piles to reinforce the structure.
Divers were kept on standby during the construction in case seawater leaked into the cofferdam, it said.
The bridge project has been criticized for “only surfacing during elections.”
The Legislative Yuan’s budget center has said in a report that the project had several issues, such as low budget implementation efficiency and construction delays.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS