The demolition of the new Samsen police station started at the Bangkok’s sinkhole site on Samsen Road Saturday night, according to Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt.
The governor said at the site Sunday morning that robots were used to first remove windows and facades of the newly built police station which was subsiding. Vehicles were moved out of the station.
Officials at the site told him that the four-storey police station moved and cracks were heard Saturday night. The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration reported on its Facebook page that soil under the station slid as it rained and the station then subsided.
However, adjacent police flat buildings and commercial buildings remained stable, Mr Chadchart said.
In the meantime, the Bangkok governor said, sand was being dumped to fill the sinkhole.
Workers already dumped 3,800 cubic metres of sand into the sinkhole as of Saturday night and 1,200 cubic metres more of sand would be added Sunday morning, he said. He did not see a new crack in the sinkhole Sunday morning.
The governor also said that adjacent Vajira Hospital operated as usual on Sunday.
The sinkhole happened with the original dimension of 30 metres wide, 30m long and 20m deep in the morning of Sept 24 above an underground station under construction for the Purple Line extension route of the Mass Rapid Transit Authority. The state enterprise blamed the subsidence on soft soil in the local area.
Officials concernred decided on the police station demolition and thus the reopening of Samsen Road in Dusit district of Bangkok was postponed indefinitely.