Cross border rail plans delayed due to “rock formations

As reported by the SCMP, The MTR Corporation might have “misled lawmakers on the work progress of the multibillion-dollar cross-border high-speed railway, lawmakers concluded after a visit to the site of the future terminus in Kowloon" after a site visit conducted earlier this week.

“They [the MTRC] told us last November at a Legco panel meeting that they have now finished the construction down to basement four which is the lowest point [at] both the northern and southern end [of the Kowloon terminus],” recalled Michael Tien Puk-sun, who is a member of the Legislative Council’s subcommittee and is responsible for railway issues.

“But today they are telling us that at this end [northern] it was only down to level three, and they discovered huge rock formation at level four that they have not even put their hands on” he also said.

Tien was told after the meeting that the construction could not be continued because of an unexpected discovery of a “huge rock formation” at the deepest level of the site, which posed a difficult obstacle for further progress.

“Was somebody lying to the Legco last November? Was there a cover-up?” he was reported to have asked, adding that the subcommittee would demand full explanation from the MTRC when its management attend the subcommittee meeting next Monday.

The MTRC said that the delays meant construction would not be completed until 2016, with services starting in 2017. In the original plan, the project was to be finished by 2015.