Construction is going smoothly and has been speeded up to attain completion by 2020, with a part of the route usable by 2019. — Illustrative image

HCM CITY (VNS) — Tunnel-boring machines will be deployed at the end of this year to connect the three underground stations on HCM City’s metro line No 1, with city authorities saying the stations have been assigned priority. 

At a media briefing yesterday, officials from the HCM City Management Authority for Urban Railways (MAUR) said bidding opened last month for construction of the 515-metre underground section between the Opera House and Bến Thành Market and ground would be broken for it in the third quarter of this year.

For building the stations on the 1,315-metre underground section from the Opera House to Ba Son Shipping Yard, Japan’s Shimizu-Maeda was hired in July 2014 and the work is going on.

Construction of the Opera House and Ba Son stations is partly finished, and with the roof of the former completed, the surrounding roads have been reopened to traffic.

Hoàng Như Cương, deputy director of MAUR, said he had complete confidence in the capacity of Japanese contractors, and is not worried there would be any leakages or damage to neighbouring buildings because of the underground structures.

“It is 40 metres underground with artesian waters, but the contractor is dealing with this problem very well.”

With the quick progress of the construction the metro would be in use in four years’ time, he predicted.

Work on 11 stations above ground are in advanced stages.  

For the 17.1km surface section, Sumimoto-Cienco 6 has completed 95 percent of the design. Contractors have pre-cast 2,069 out of the 4,563 segments required for the U-shaped viaduct and installed 129 spans measuring 4.5km.    

Construction is going smoothly and has been speeded up to attain completion by 2020, with a part of the route usable by 2019.

At the meeting, MAUR revealed that construction of metro line No 2, which does require approval from the National Assembly following a recent decision by the Government, would begin 2018 and take six years.

Cương said land acquisition and planning for it are under way, with 791 households requiring to be relocated. Land clearance had been speeded up, he added. — VNS