For a 20 meter stretch of road, drainage pipes three meters high are held in place with tape instead of bolts anchored into the cement buttress.

It’s not clear how long the pipes have been taped up, but it’s not the first time shoddy construction has been an issue. Flimsy construction of buildings and infrastructure projects in China are described using the term “tofu”, so-named for their similarity to the soy-based food known for its lack of structural integrity. The term came into prominence after the 2008 Sichuan earthquakes when local schools collapsed, killing scores of children.

But while the taped-up pipes under the Changchun overpass may be a quick fix to an old problem, shoddy building practices have been applied to new projects as well. After the Jiaozhou Bay Bridge was opened on the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2011, CCTV discovered the bridge was finished although there were numerous gaps in the guard rail that featured missing or unsecured bolts.

The next year a scandal broke out suggesting a number of Chinese buildings have been built with compromised cement, including the Ping’an Tower in Shenzhen.

At least 37 bridges have collapsed across China from 2007 to 2012, killing more than 180 people and injuring at least 177. As a result, the government spent 43.88 billion yuan ($7.05 billion) in 2013 to repair 21,600 “hazardous” bridges in the country.

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The video shows six front loaders smashing into each other on a public road as traffic does its best to dodge the battling behemoths. The action becomes particularly fierce after one front loader pushes another onto its side, prompting other drivers to get in on the action.

Remarkably, only two people were reported injured in the incident, which is believed to be have erupted over a contract dispute between competing construction companies.

Police have not reported any arrests following the incident and are still investigating.

Watch the video below:

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The truly infuriating part for local residents was that neither the school officials nor the developer offered any explanation as to why the school was being demolished until yesterday. According to a school official, “hidden geological dangers that are difficult to explain, necessitate the school having to be completely rebuilt from scratch.” There has been no further clarification as to what precisely the hidden geological dangers are, however as the demolition of the school began on Monday, it doesn’t make much of a difference at this point.

Prior to the “explanation”, residents took to Weibo to speculate as to why the school was being destroyed. Several netizens questioned if the city failed to meet its GDP quota, arguing the school was specifically built to be torn down. Others suspected the demolition was the result of shoddy construction, or that there were simply not enough students to attend the school.

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The hole opened up early Monday morning on Beijing East Road and is estimated to be ten square meters in diameter and one meter deep. Workers were seen putting up a temporary wall as someone approached the photographer who took the above pictures to force them to stop taking pictures (as seen in picture #3).

The sinkhole has caused traffic chaos in Nanjing, with traffic on the two-way street now just limited to one lane.

However, this isn’t the first time that a sinkhole has appeared on Beijing East Road. As a matter of fact, there have been four other sinkholes that have opened up while tunnel construction is underway:

• A 40 centimeter-deep sinkhole that opened at October 29 at 5:40am
• A 1.5 meter-deep sinkhole that opened at October 29 at 9am, trapping a passing ambulance
• A 3 meter-deep sinkhole that opened on November 2 in the afternoon
• A 1.6 meter-deep sinkhole that opened on November 10 at 8am

But as news reports tell us, the sinkholes don’t have anything to do with the subway construction. According to a spokesperson for the Nanjing Subway Construction Unit, Monday’s sinkhole is the result of heavy rains that have been falling on Nanjing.

Explanations for the other four sinkholes weren’t mentioned in the report.

Sinkholes resulting from subway construction in China is not limited to Nanjing. This past August, a 300 square meter sinkhole appeared in a densely-populated part of Dongguan that killed a worker underground, while Shenzhen has seen four sinkholes this year arising from subway construction-related causes.

Other Chinese fatalities resulting from subway tunnels collapse during construction include a Shenyang victim last month, and another in Nanning last October.

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The 3,886 meter-long tunnel runs from Shenzhen, Guangdong all the way to Mai Po District in Hong Kong, laying the tracks for high-speed rail travel between the two destinations.

Upon completion, the Kowloon-Shenzhen high-speed line will connect with the already operating Beijing-Shenzhen line. The new line is expected to cut travel time between Hong Kong and Beijing from 20 hours to just nine.

The joint effort to build the railway line was notably constructed under two different standards: Chinese and European, the latter of which was used for the Hong Kong section.

Wu Xiangong of the China Railway Group Company gushed over the opportunity to work with two different standards:

We realized seamless joint Chinese and European standards in the two rail tunnel sections and we can use the experiences to build on future opportunities of tunnel construction in Europe and even America. And through this practice we can find some benefits to the ‘going global’ strategy.

Previous estimates had put the railway’s completion to be in 2016.

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The fledging Dongguan subway system has suffered another setback after a massive sinkhole opened up that is close to consuming an entire building.

A sinkhole first appeared on August 12 near the Lianbang residential complex in Changping District during construction of the subway tunnel, but it grew dramatically today at 10:30am and now measures an estimated 300 square meters in size.

A worker underground at the time of the collapse was killed, the first known fatality associated with a sinkhole in Dongguan (though there have been many in neighboring Shenzhen). All nearby residents have been evacuated from their homes as a precaution.

Lianbang Plaza is population spot in Dongguan. The area around the construction and the sinkhole is the busiest in the area.

Today’s development is the latest in a series of sinkholes that have plagued Dongguan. On February 16, 2014, a sinkhole first appeared outside Lianbang Plaza, measuring 40 square meters is size and three meters deep. In June, another sinkhole appeared measuring 60 square meters in size and three meters deep.

Meanwhile, sinkholes have also been a mainstay in nearby Shenzhen, which has had four collapses just this year so far.

The precise moment of the collapse was caught on video, seen here:

Related:

• NPC Rep Builds Illegal Basement 18 Meters Deep, Leads to Massive Sinkhole
• Beijing Times Reporter Bribed Not To Report On Sinkhole
• Five People Hurt After Two Sinkholes in Two Days in Shenzhen
• Four-door Sedan Swallowed by Massive Shenzhen Sinkhole
• Another sinkhole in Shenzhen Swallows Up Two Vehicles
• Another Large Sinkhole Opens Up in Shenzhen

The post Video: Sinkhole in Dongguan So Big it Could Soon Swallow an Entire Residential Building appeared first on The Nanfang.

Here’s a GIF that helps illustrate it. Not pictured are future expansions that will connect the Shanghai Metro with the subway lines of Suzhou and Wuxi. As mind-blowing as this is, we should keep in mind that subway expansions like this are happening all over China.

And if this GIF inspires you to build an elaborate subway system of your own, you can always check out the game Mini Metro and become the urban planner you’ve always wanted to be.

[h/t That’s Online]

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A Shenzhen Metro tunnel under construction collapsed yesterday, trapping five workers and killing one. It happened yesterday on Shenzhen’s future Line 7, located between Fumin and Huanggang in Futian District at 4:10pm. Ten meters of tunnel collapsed, causing a three meter deep hole on the surface above. At the time of the incident, the five workers were changing the blades on the digging mechanism.

The trapped survivors were rescued by firefighters, with three requiring medical attention for their injuries. The last person to be rescued was freed at 11:35 last night.

The cause has not yet been determined. Nearly 50 residents living in houses above the cave-in have been evacuated from their homes as a safety precaution. Emergency repairs have been made as workers were later seen pouring cement into the hole on the surface.

This is not the first time construction on a subway tunnel in Shenzhen has led to a collapse.

This past February, a huge sinkhole that appeared in Luohu District was suspected to be due to construction for the Shenzhen Metro Line 9. Last November, a tunnel under construction for Line 7 caused a road to collapse near Fumin Road and Yitian Road. Last October, construction on Yinhu Station on Metro Line 9 led to yet another collapse.

Up until yesterday’s tragedy, no tunnel collapses in Shenzhen have involved any fatalities.

Despite this frequency, the building of the Shenzhen Metro has been criticized for improper safety protocols as far back as 2013. In July of that year, a tunnel for Line 9 collapsed, trapping seven workers and later prompting criticism that construction for the subway tunnels was using inferior building materials and work procedures.

Subway tunnel collapses have also been occurring throughout China. Over the past year, subway tunnels that have collapsed during construction killed one person in Shenyang last month, and another in Nanning last October. As well, Beijing suffered one such incident last March.

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43 eggs were unearthed when a construction crew was digging up Datong South Road in Heyuan, Guangdong to lay a network of underground pipes. Heyuan museum workers sent to recover the artifacts, have said that 19 of the eggs remain fully intact.

As seen from the photographs, the dinosaur eggs were embedded in the rock just centimeters below the paved asphalt road.

While this is the first such find in the downtown area, Heyuan is be no means a stranger to finding dinosaur fossils. In March 1996, the first of 17,000 fossilized eggs were found in the city near the Dongjiang River. In 2005, Heyuan set a Guinness world record for housing a record 10,008 fossilized dinosaur eggs in its museum, and is responsible for a full one-third of all dinosaur eggs found in the world.

Heyuan has been dubbed “Hometown of the Dinosaur” in China, and even has a species of dinosaur named after it, Heyuannia.

While this appears to be a rare find, officials have suggested there may be more eggs. Director of the Heyuan dinosaur museum, Du Yanli, asks citizens to promptly notify the relevant municipal government if any other eggs are discovered. Previous finds have sparked massive interest for funding dinosaur museums and excavations.

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Two newly constructed buildings in the Pudong area of Shanghai, nicknamed the “kissing buildings”, are threatening their occupants as one building leans precariously into the other.

The apartment buildings were first occupied by residents only two years ago. Yet foundation cracks can already be seen throughout the exterior of the leaning No. 17, which is located only inches away from its twin 15-story neighbor at their closest spot.

Pudong was originally a swampy grassland that was largely undeveloped before the revitalization of China’s economy in the 1990s. In order to ensure a stable foundation, thousands of steel pillars dozens of meters long were driven into the earth.

However, Pudong’s highest skyscrapers already have long cracks in the sidewalks below them as critics claim the entire area is sinking.

Shanghai is also where a 13-story apartment building fell over completely intact, having become free from its foundation. One person was killed in the incident, but no residents were living in the building at the time.

Photos: People’s Daily Online, SMG News

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