HCMC – The Management Authority for Urban Railways of HCMC (MAUR) has suggested the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which funds the metro line No. 1 project in HCMC, appoint an independent consultant to investigate and assess the fallen rubber cushion incident.
According to MAUR, it has worked with the competent agencies, NJPT, a consulting unit of the metro line; Sumitomo – Cienco6 Consortium (SCC), the contractor of the elevated section and depots of the project; and other relevant agencies to accelerate the investigation into and the handling of the incident.
SCC has completed the necessary experiments and observations and will soon send a report on the reasons for the incident to MAUR and NJPT.
The addition of an independent consulting unit will boost the legal process and offer an objective basis for the acceptance of the work.
The consultant, which must be independent of SCC, will be responsible for verifying and assessing the cause of the incident and proposing solutions to the contractor.
In late October last year, a rubber cushion at a viaduct part of the metro line fell. Later, five other rubber cushions were also found to have deviated from their positions.
In November this year, MAUR reported the incident to the HCMC government, saying that the incident had been caused by temperature differences between the girder and the track, errors in construction leading to unsatisfactory friction between the contact surface of the cushions and piers, and the low quality of cushions.
HCMC’s first metro line project includes a 2.6-kilometer underground section and a 17.1-kilometer elevated section with three underground stations and 11 elevated stations. The project, which requires an estimated investment of VND43.7 trillion, is over 88% complete.
