SARS and Seismic Issues Did Not Derail Taiwan's Express Line

摘要

By putting most of its new high-speed railroad on viaducts, Taiwan is avoiding many construction pitfalls along the route through the urbanized corridor that stretches across the island's western coast. Production line techniques for thousands of 800-tonne girders further eliminated Snags―but, not SARS and. seismic events that har-ried the $15-billion, three-year- old tion project. Engineering aftershocks of the 1999 "Chi-Chi" earthquake that devastated central Taiwan first hindered progress. Then, as resulting seismic design uncertainties were being resolved last year, the disease SARS afflicted the island, spurring a mass exodus of migrant labor.