Taipei City councilors across party lines urged the Taipei City Government yesterday to demolish the Xinsheng Overpass (新生高架橋) after it admitted using substandard adhesive in the overpass’ ongoing overhaul.
The manufacturer’s US branch, Sika USA, issued an e-mail recall for two types of moisture-tolerant, high-strength structural epoxy — Sikadure AnchorFix-3 and Sikadure AnchorFix-4 — in January, but the city government continued using AnchorFix-4 until it learned about the recall on Monday.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors Chuang Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄) and Liu Yao-ren (劉耀仁) took several local borough chiefs on an inspection tour of an overpass construction site yesterday. They condemned the city government for not learning about the substandard adhesive earlier, and urged it to stop the repair work and tear down the overpass.
“How can the city government not know about the problematic adhesive? The city government and the contractor are risking lives. The pass should be dismantled, not repaired,” Chuang said.
New Party Taipei City councilors Hou Guan-chun (侯冠群) and Pan Hwai-tzong (潘懷宗) said Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) should learn from South Korea’s example and turn the overpass into a river.
Former Seoul mayor Lee Myung-bak demolished an elevated highway above the Cheonggyecheon River and redeveloped the river in 2005.
Hou and Pan said the city should demolish the poorly constructed overpass and rehabilitate the Jeelung River underneath it into a recreation area.
“Instead of taking risks with a broken overpass, the city government should just tear it down and restore the river to its former beauty,” Hou said.
Hau said the questionable adhesive was only used for mending and the basic structure of the bridge remained firm.
The city government would ensure the quality of the reconstruction before it reopens the overpass, he said.
“The overpass itself is absolutely safe. It will not crumble,” he said.
The overpass was a main route connecting northern and southern Taipei, along with the Jianguo Overpass (建國高架橋), and the city had no plans to demolish it, he said.
Built more than 25 years ago, the Xinsheng Overpass has been undergoing renovation and repair since July last year, with a budget of NT$1.6 billion (US$48 million). It is scheduled to reopen at the end of next month.
The city government only learned about the adhesive recall when staff from the Chinese-language Next Magazine contacted it on Monday as part of their research for a story that was published in Wednesday’s edition of the magazine.
The city would look into the responsibilities of the contractor and the manufacturer for the recall, Hau said.
City officials said on Wednesday that the city would sue Sika Taiwan Ltd for failing to inform it of the product recall, but district prosecutors said they had yet to receive the lawsuit.
Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office spokesperson Lin Jinn-tsun (林錦村) said prosecutors would begin to process the case as soon as the office received the documents from the city government.
If Sika Taiwan were found to be responsible for failing to inform the city government of the recall, it could face other charges, including fraud and forgery, prosecutors said.
In related news, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday it had put prosecutor Kuo Li-chuan (郭麗娟) in charge of the investigation into the Maokong Gondola, which was closed after landslide damage. The defective adhesive was reportedly used in the gondola’s construction as well.
In a separate case involving the problem-plagued Neihu-Muzha MRT line, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Panel (SIP) has opened an investigation, and said it would not transfer the case to Taipei District prosecutors.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications released a statement yesterday outlining the steps it will take to ensure the quality of construction work under its supervision.
“If any of the proposed projects or current construction is considering using either Fix-3 or Fix-4 anchoring adhesives, the officials in charge must ask contractors to stop using them immediately,” Department of Railways and Highways Director-General Chi Wen-jong (祈文中) said.
“The ministry will ask its bureaus to thoroughly review completed construction projects to determine if either adhesive was used. The bureaus must carefully monitor the safety of the structure,” he said.
“The ministry will try to determine why the US withdrew the adhesives, and what steps it took with regard to construction projects that used the adhesives. We will also ask experts to research ways of fortifying such projects,” Chi said.
The ministry has learned that some construction work handled by the Bureau of High Speed Rail and the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau used AnchorFix-4 adhesive, Chi said.
Contractors on two sites for the Airport Rail had used AnchorFix-4, while freeway bureau contractors used it to fortify freeways in three places.
One of the freeway projects is already completed, while the other two are still under construction.
Both the Taipei and Kaohsiung MRT systems used Sika Corp adhesives, but not AnchorFix-3 or AnchorFix-4, Chi said.
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