The China Post
Date: June 20, 2016
By: CNA
JAKARTA — Several Taiwanese technicians in Jakarta to help build a tunnel for the city’s mass rapid transit (MRT) line celebrated the tunnel’s recent breakthrough by posing for photos with a
In this Saturday, June 18 photo, Taiwanese technicians pose outside the tunnel for Indonesia’s Jakarta mass rapid transit (MRT), holding up the R.O.C. flag in celebration of a recent breakthrough in the tunneling process. (CNA)
flag of the Republic of China (Taiwan) at the job site.
Kuo Shih-hung, one of the Taiwanese who took part in the work, said in an interview with CNA this past week that the Taiwanese engineers were hired by the line’s Japanese contractor to help with the tunnel, part of the first phase of the MRT project.
The Japanese contractor, Sumitomo Mitsui Construction Co., recruited the Taiwanese engineers because Indonesian workers lacked the skills and expertise needed to operate the tunnel boring machine used to drill underground tunnels for the planned metro line.
The more than 10 technicians involved, including Kuo, who had experience with similar shield tunneling techniques in building the Taipei and Kaohsiung subway systems, have been in Jakarta for six months.
They were happy to see the tunnel they were working on finally drilled through this past week, Kuo said, and he and fellow Taiwanese and Indonesian workers posed for photos with their national flags to celebrate the occasion. [FULL STORY]
