DANNY LEE AND CHRISTY LEUNG
PUBLISHED : Friday, 23 October, 2015, 9:49pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 24 October, 2015, 12:17am
Traffic chaos as the Tsing Ma Bridge closes
Chaos hit Hong Kong on Friday night as an emergency closure of the vital Tsing Ma Bridge left traffic paralysed and stranded thousands of passengers at the airport while leaving others scrambling to get to their flights.
The bridge, which carries the only road and rail link between Lantau Island and the rest of Hong Kong, was shut for emergency checks at about 7.40pm after a vessel, believed to be a barge, hit part of its structure, triggering an alarm.
Tsing Ma Management Company suspended all road and rail services for two hours to make checks on Kap Shui Mun Bridge – the section of Tsing Ma Bridge between Ma Wan and Lantau. It reopened about two hours later.
Director of Highways Peter Lau Ka-keung last night said there was no structural damage to the bridge and more inspections would be carried out today.
"After a vessel collided with the bridge, we had to check carefully before it could open," he explained.
Asked how one bridge closure could cause such chaos, Lau admitted it was the only direct link to the airport and was the result of planning dating back to the 1980s.
Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying will convene a meeting today to discuss the matter.
READ MORE: Hong Kong hub struggles to find cure to flight backlogs
All six lanes of upper roadway and both lanes of lower roadway were shut last night, along with the MTR’s Airport Express and Tung Chung line beyond Tsing Yi.
Angry drivers grilled staff at the toll plaza on Tsing Yi as to when the bridge would reopen as traffic jams stretched back to the Cheung Tsing Tunnel. There were also queues back to Sunny Bay on Lantau as frustrated drivers waited to get to Kowloon.
As well as suspending services to the airport, the MTR closed its in-town check-in service at the request of the bridge operator. With no transport to the airport – except a circuitous route using ferries and buses – air crew as well as passengers were left stranded.
A couple heading to catch a 1am flight to Seoul said the MTR failed to give clear instructions.
“We are so helpless. We have been stuck for more than an hour,” said the man. “The MTR did not give us clear instructions or inform us what has been happening.”
Another angry passenger said she was instructed by an MTR employee to take a ferry from Central to Discovery Bay – a journey of about half an hour – then change to an airport bus.
The MTR Corporation said the closures were a result of the emergency on the bridge. It said it could not provide shuttle services due to congestion on the road.
Because of the transport problems, flights departing after 11pm yesterday, including to London, Istanbul, Johannesburg and Los Angeles, were delayed by up to an hour.
Opened in 1997, the Tsing Ma Bridge is the world’s longest combined road and rail suspension bridge and the ninth-longest span suspension bridge in the world. It cost HK$7.2 billion and was part of a massive campaign of engineering work to support the new airport at Chek Lap Kok.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/1871482/hong-kong-traffic-chaos-tsing-ma-bridge-closes-leaving
