KRTC 4: Swiss cheese city

The MRT system in 高雄 Kaohsiung (Gaoxiong) not only caused the DPP's election collapse in Saturday's elections, but also directly caused a road collapse last night. Chinese language news is reporting the seventh structural failure causing a cave in. TV footage shows an approximately 50 meter wide hole next to the one pictured above, with trees being sucked into the chasm. The English news services haven't reported on the collapses yet.

Construction workers dug too deep and hit a water pocket, destabilizing the entire area. Local authorities are investigating for substandard materials, the cause of the previous collapses. In an all-too-familiar scenario, the city does its job and pays for the appropriate higher quality material. However, the the contractor uses substandard materials instead and keeps the difference. Who picks the contractors? Why, your friendly neighborhood DPP. Who runs the construction project? Why, the friends of said DPP. Who runs the local prosecutor's office that is supposed to investigate and keep a handle on corruption? Why, it's that clean-government, corruption-fighting DPP again, smack dab in the middle of the muck they've been promising to wipe out.

The repair costs to fix this hole alone are estimated at NT$500 million. The continuing damage to the people of Kaohsiung and the DPP as a result of this continuing fiasco is likely incalculable.

Update: The Taipei Times has a story on the collapse with a picture of the bigger hole and some background.

[DPP] [Taiwan] [Taiwan Corruption]