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July 1, 2014

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Contractor fears for safety of railway line

THE boss of a construction company that knowingly used substandard materials on a major railway project in north China’s Shanxi Province has spoken out about his safety concerns.

The man, surnamed Jia, said his company was awarded a contract in 2010 to build 19 culverts along a section of the railway that runs from Taiyuan City to Xingxian County across a loess plateau.

After five years under construction, the line is scheduled to go into service later this year, but Jia said he fears it is not safe.

“I have wrestled with myself for a long time, but finally I decided to speak out,” he told the Economic Information Daily.

The problem concerns the materials used to backfill the culverts, Jia said.

“The space between the culverts and the subgrade should have been filled with corrosion-resistant materials,” he said.

But Li Yousheng, the project manager from the 3rd Engineering Co under the China Railway 12th Bureau Group, which awarded the project to Jia, said he should use the loess extracted during construction as backfill.

“If it rains, the loess will turn to mud and get washed away,” he said.

“We knew it wasn’t the right material for the project, but that was what we were told to use,” he said.

“The correct products would have cost tens of yuan per ton, but the loess was free,” he said.

Several of Jia’s staff also expressed their concerns, saying they felt like they were “sticking mud to the culverts,” which meant they were unsound.

“I used to wake from nightmares in which the culverts collapsed and a train derailed,” one person said.

Despite the obvious safety risks, Jia said the engineering supervisors turned a blind eye to the shoddy work.

This was because Li had “built good relationships” with them, he said.

Despite the safety concerns, neither the China Railway 12th Bureau Group nor the 3rd Engineering Co had sent officials to assess the situation, according to the report.

The supervising company, Qinyuan Engineering Consultancy Co, which is based in the neighboring Inner Mongolia Region, declined to respond to questions about the claims.

When a journalist attempted to interview the owner of the project, Shanxi Taixing Railway Co, a man claiming to be the general manager punched him in the back and ordered him out of his office.

He also pinched the reporter’s neck, and asked: “Who sent you to interview me?”

When the journalist protested, the man said: “Yes, I have beaten you. So what?”

The reporter couldn’t name his attacker, but official records state the general manager of Shanxi Taixing Railway is Zhang Chunrui, the report said.




 

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