Expert Feels More Tests Needed At Hung Hom Station

A civil engineering expert who helped plan the ongoing tests at Hung Hom MTR Station said on Monday that he believes more spots may have to be cracked open to find out whether there is a widespread construction problem and if the station's safety has been impaired.

Professor Francis Au, the head of the University of Hong Kong’s Civil Engineering Department, made the remarks as he gave expert evidence to an independent inquiry looking into allegations that some steel bars have not been properly screwed into couplers.

He noted that the government and the MTRC had begun knocking open some concrete slabs last month to examine the coupler connections, and so far more than a third of the bars examined are either unconnected or only partly screwed in.

Au said it was a “real concern”, since obviously the problem had escaped the attention of the contractor, sub-contractors and supervisors.

He said more checks have to be carried out to find out whether there were defects elsewhere. Whether the station’s structural safety was affected would depend on the number of defective connections, he added.

The expert, engaged by the government to assess the project for the purpose of the inquiry, added that the findings so far had “reinforced [his] belief that there is a real need to continue the opening up process”.

He said steel bars which are not fully screwed in can still provide some degree of support, but further laboratory tests have to be done on the same type of steel bars and couplers used in the station to assess their strength, and more calculations have to be made to decide whether structural integrity was undermined.