A buried pipe at a sewer construction site in Osaka suddenly rose vertically to about 13 meters above ground early Wednesday morning, nearly touching an elevated road, according to city officials. The cause is still unclear.
The pipe’s sudden surge scattered concrete debris beneath a major elevated road close to Hankyu Osaka-Umeda Station, though no injuries were reported, city officials said.
Police received an emergency call at around 6:50 a.m. on Wednesday that concrete debris was scattering around the construction site in the Tsurunocho area of the city’s Kita Ward. According to the city’s construction bureau, the steel pipe installed for construction work had suddenly risen above ground.
The construction site sits beneath an elevated section of National Route 423. Concrete fragments were scattered across the roadway below the elevated road, prompting the Osaka Prefectural Police to shut down nearby roads including parts of the national route.
The pipe, which is about 27 meters long and 3.5 meters in diameter, had been buried as part of work connecting an existing sewer line with a storage conduit designed to hold excess rainwater during heavy rainfall. The pipe was being used as a retaining structure to prevent excavated soil from collapsing.
Workers had been pumping groundwater out of the pipe until early Wednesday morning, but no abnormalities had been detected before the incident. City officials said they are investigating the cause.
Ryozo Kawakita, a 73-year-old self-employed resident who lives nearby, said he was unable to take his work vehicle out because of the road closures. “I can’t believe this,” he said.
Hiroaki Miyazaki, head of the city’s sewer department, apologized for the disruption, saying the road closures had caused major traffic congestion and significant inconvenience for residents.
Translated by The Japan Times