Bangkok's new international airport has about 100 cracks in the taxiways that lead to runways and will need to close the damaged areas for repair, a top airport official said yesterday.
Somchai Sawasdeepon, the general manager of Suvarnabhumi Airport and a senior executive in state-run Airports of Thailand, denied news reports splashed across front pages yesterday saying that the cracks had also emerged in runways.
"The cracks do not appear in runways and pose no safety threat to aircraft," Somchai said when contacted by telephone.
Nonetheless, it was the latest batch of bad publicity for the flashy new airport, which opened on Sept. 28 and has been plagued by ongoing glitches and corruption allegations.
Somchai said the cracks began appearing about two weeks after the airport opened and are believed to stem from underground water seeping through the cement and asphalt, Somchai said.
The airport was built on a former swamp.
The cracks were made public by a panel set up by the National Legislative Assembly to inspect the airport's construction.
Praphan Koonmee, head of the panel, said that his committee toured the airport on Sunday and detected cracks in about 70,000m2 of taxiways and runways.
An independent panel of engineers is due to begin a separate investigation, after which airport authorities plan to close the cracked taxiways for repairs, Somchai said. He said the cracks were clustered in seven different areas.
The airport's two runways are each served by more than 10 taxiways and any closures would not cause delays in air traffic, Somchai said.
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