Story By: John Feng, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Asia Wire Report
Video Credit: AsiaWire
This is the moment an under-construction monorail track snaps in half and collapsed onto a road, reportedly injuring one worker who fell dozens of feet with the crumbling concrete beam.
The incident happened in the city of Wuhu in East China’s Anhui Province, where the much anticipated Wuhu Metro – or Wuhu Rail Transit – is just over one year from launch.
CCTV images dated 15th November show the Line 1 monorail track breaking at its centre and collapsing onto the ground between what is to be Yijiang Station and Baimashan Station.
Officials said one injured worker was taken to hospital for treatment, but his exact condition is still unknown.
The accident happened after one track became unbalanced and tipped to one side, reports said, with images taken in the aftermath showing just one of the two lines remaining intact.
Investigations are still going, and work on both lines 1 and 2 of the metro system has been suspended.
It was not immediately clear whether the work site accident would affect the project’s soft opening date of January 2021 – just 14 months away.
Work for Wuhu Metro began on 24th December 2016 and is being led by Chinese rolling stock manufacturer CRRC and the China Railway Group.
Infrastructure is being built by China Railway subsidiary CTCE, and the transit system will use fully automated and driverless Bombardier Innovia Monorail trains manufactured by joint venture CRRC Bombardier.
A total of 36 stations – 25 on Line 1 and 11 on Line 2 – are scheduled for phase one, with the monorail tracks connecting 284 kilometres (176 miles) of the city which has a metropolitan area population of 1.6 million.
Social media user ‘user65421’ commented on the incident: “No need to investigate! The investigative report has already been written:
“There are no structural problems – the accident resulted from the worker’s overweight toolbox and because of bad weather.”
‘Cen_yicheng_WZ’ said: “It’s made of tofu. I don’t even want to manage what it’ll be like after it starts running.”
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