Kaohsiung Gas Explosion Damage

Geotagged photos by MJ Klein

By now, everyone has heard of the gas explosions in the southern Taiwan city of Kaohsiung.  We live far away from there, but my wife’s parents live close enough to have felt the explosions in their apartment.  Recently, I went walking down what is left of a road where a section of the explosions happened.

This scene is just one of many places where the road is blocked off to traffic.  It’s because there is no road to travel on ahead.

I ignored the police tape and took a walk down the sidewalk like I owned the place.  No one looked at me twice.

These are roll-formed metal pilings that are being used to shore up the sides of the trench that is left after the debris had been cleaned out of the explosion sites.  You’ll see how these are being used, shortly.

Excavators with special attachments are used to pick up, place, and hammer the pilings into place.  One thing that I have to say is, I admire how the Taiwanese don’t just sit and whine about things – they get busy putting them back right.  This was a Sunday afternoon and the men were hard at work.

 

This building is a hospital, and our baby, Phoenix, was born here.  The babies were all evacuated when the explosions happened.

This concrete was wet and brand new when I photographed it.

I didn’t have to go very far to get the picture.  The destruction is pretty much the same all the way down.

Keep in mind that this is what the site looks like after the debris has been removed.  The explosions broke the road up and the debris fell back into place.  This is the hole that is left once the debris has been taken out.  All of the underground services have been disrupted.

This scene went on as far as the eye could see.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on here.

The man in the red shirt is directing the positions of the pilings.  Here you can see that he’s giving the excavator operator some kind of hand signal.

In this shot he’s physically man-handling a piling into place as it’s going down.

This will give you an idea of just how hard this man is working.

This excavator is picking up pilings that have already been hammered into place, and is positioning them to the same height.

These life-preservers make sense when you consider that someone could inadvertently fall into the water.

I saw many places where there were hundreds of these barriers blocking off areas under repair.

This is a pile of road signs that might be recycled.

I leave you with this shot of some concrete pipe, awaiting installation.

Thanks for reading.  We can’t wait to hear from you!