Taiwan high speed rail 'sinking'

TAIPEI — A top Taiwanese official said Tuesday the earth was sinking under the island's high-speed rail, warning it could become inoperable in 10 years's time if nothing is done.Along a stretch of rail in central Taiwan, the soil has subsided due to excessive draining of ground waters, and the limit of what is considered safe is approaching, said Lee Hong-yuan, head of the Public Construction Commission."The high-speed rail will face a huge crisis if we can't solve the problems within the next 10 years," Lee told reporters.If the subsidence continues, the train will have to decelerate along some stretches, leaving it questionable if it still qualified as "high-speed", an official with the commission told AFP.The cabinet is planning to host a meeting later this week to try to find a solution to the safety issues, he added.The 345-kilometre (207-mile) system using Japanese bullet-train technology is billed as one of Taiwan's largest privately funded transport projects with an estimated cost of $15 billion.However, the high-speed rail company had incurred about $2 billion in losses, or roughly two thirds of its capitalisation, three years after the system went into operation in 2007.Last year, the company secured new funding of $12 billion -- the biggest syndicated loan in Taiwan history -- as part of efforts to pay off earlier loans.A build-operate-transfer formula adopted for the railway charged the corporation with constructing and running the line for 35 years before handing it to the government. Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved. More »

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