HCM City: Work starts on metro line 1 tunnel
A Japanese-made tunnel boring machine (TBM) began carving out a tunnel for the metro line 1- Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien section in Ho Chi Minh City on May 26.
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It then will be dismounted and transported back to Ba Son terminal to carve out the western part of the tunnel. The work is expected to be completed in June 2018.
Le Minh Quang, head of the Ho Chi Minh City urban railway management board, said that the use of TBM will help well control subsidence, reduce bad impacts on the environment and traffic, thus contributing to speeding up the construction.
Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong said the metro line 1 is one of the city’s key infrastructure projects that helps tackle traffic congestion and improve the city’s urban infrastructure.
He asked for more efforts to complete and put the metro line into operation in 2020.
The Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien section is 19.7 kilometres long, in which the tunnel’s length is 2.6 kilometres. The project has a total investment of nearly US$2.5 billion. Its construction began in August 2012.
