Thirteen of the 17 stations on the under-construction Rail Transport No. 4, a ring-shaped subway line, will open to the public late next year, a senior engineer said yesterday.
The opening of the other four stations, which are located between Damuqiao Road in Puxi and Lancun Road in Pudong, was pushed back due to a cave-in that took place in July of last year.
"The 13 stations will form a 'C' shaped subway line running through the city's downtown areas," Yu Jiakang, a senior engineer with the Shanghai Tunnel Engineering and Rail Transit Design and Research Institute, said yesterday.
Rt no.4, which will cover 22 kilometers, is designed to form the city's first ring-shaped subway line, partly overlapping with the existing Rail Transportation No.3.
Linking baoshan Road and Hongqiao Road, the line will include two new tunnels across the Huangpu River.
Officials haven't said when the four delayed stations will finally open.
The entire project was nearing completion on July 1, 2003 when a tunnel connection accident along the line caused land subsidence at a block at Dongjiadu Area in Huangpu District.
In a chain reaction, the damage, which caused sand and water to pour into the tube, caused one building to collapse, three others to tilt and part of a floodwall to collapse. No one was injured in the accident.
After 15 days, emergency workers managed to control the subsidence, but the accident caused a loss of 150 million yuan (US$18 million) and severely delay the subway construction.
Three senior managers, including Yuan Qianghua, a project manager with Shanghai Tunnel Engineering Company, were arrested for negligence.
Currently, builders are working at the site where the accident happened, in order to fix the tunnel according to its original plan.
The government has adopted a plan to build a subway system covering 510 kilometers and including 10 multi-level transfer complexes by 2010.
It will include two extensions of the city's second metro line, which will eventually connect the Hongqiao International Airport with the Pudong International Airport.