Constructing Singapore's Gigantic Subway System: Mass Rapid Transit | Building The Biggest | Spark

singapore an economic miracle in one generation this tiny southeast asian island has made the move from third world status to first it's now undergoing one of the world's largest ever subway expansions a mighty challenge given that they're tunneling underneath a bulging metropolis and through difficult soil conditions but you put any pressure on it and it just does that black toothpaste [Music] the work is time consuming and dangerous what i'm a little bit concerned about is the tunnel boring machine is stationed right below the swimming pool what i'd like to see is that tbm moving forward away from those condominiums can they do it without causing a collapse of the mass of towers buildings and roadways that make up singapore can they drill these new tunnels through the eye of a needle [Music] singapore is one of the most densely populated countries in the world four million people packed onto a tiny island that's fifteen thousand people every square mile it's confronted transport chaos by creating a public transport system with no equal by 2010 there will be a subway stop every 400 meters throughout most of the island risky business for the men building it under this massive humanity one of the points about our alignment here is that we have to avoid two high-rise structures these are private structures condominiums here and here chris knight hassell is a british engineer who recently worked on the london underground expansion he's now working for the singapore government on this massive project if we're wrong here by about an inch i mean that's just not acceptable and these are the things that we just can't get wrong these are the two buildings chris's team is tunneling under as we're increasing the the amount of underground networks and so on in singapore we're coming closer and closer to building so here you can see an example where we're literally threading ourselves through the eye of a needle so here i am below the the swimming pool and behind me here is the slurry tbm the tunnel boring machine is launched through a shaft in the ground often at depths of 30 meters like a giant earthworm it moves its way through the ground chewing through soil and rock concrete rings are then put in place where the soil has been removed right up until it meets its destination it's almost like a a manufacturing plant we're continually doing the same same old thing we're digging the ground pushing ourselves forward building a ring and removing the soil as we go along the world of tunnelling is slow they can only put in about seven of these 19-ton concrete rings a day that's about 10 meters of tunnel move too quickly in singapore's soft soil and you're asking for trouble if we try and progress the tunnel boy machine too quickly we may end up drawing in too much ground and if that was to happen what what that would translate into is perhaps too much or excessive settlement to surface what this could mean is that you start seeing cracks or something in the building and that's something we're really trying to avoid it can take almost a year for the massive tunnel boring machine to break through the wall of the excavated station that lies ahead this is the glory moment that all the men working underground dream of making it here in one piece okay up and down exercise begin one two three each morning at eight a.m the japanese contractor gets an army of men ready for the day's work exercise beginning let's start with a few limbering up exercises okay trunk bending forward backward exercise begin one two three four four two three four okay knee rotating exercise one two three four two two three four three it ends with a call to action then it's off to work 25 meters below ground today there's a problem the tunnel boring machine is not chewing through the rock as well as it should so the man in charge has stopped it and gone to one of the most dangerous places underground the cutting head all this metal piece turns and what it does is that it uses these bike cutters to scrape and breaks all the rocks and soils to dig through the soil so this is the thing that is doing all the job but it's not looking good he's decided the cutting heads need changing a dangerous job for his men we are about 20 meters below ground this soil it can drop any time if we are not careful but the work needs to get done the men are called into work in one of the most dangerous places underground one wrong move could spell disaster singapore is undergoing one of the world's biggest ever subway expansions there's 13 construction squads working throughout the island over 5000 men putting in 33 kilometers of tunnel and 29 new stations a 6 billion project it requires two ships working day and night often in heat and humidity soaring above 40 degrees today they've had to stop one of the giant tunnel machines and go right to the front where the soil around them can drop any time they've decided to change the cutting teeth it's a treacherous and expensive job each blade costs ten thousand dollars to change all the teeth costs half a million dollars [Music] if it starts to settle we know that the ground on top of us is moving and if we see a lot of movement then i will start i have no choice to get my guys out the job continues into the night it's a tough business with long hours for the man overseeing the work sometimes i had to work for three days non-stop if i have problems i have to stay if i have problems the job goes smoothly and the tunnel boring machine starts turning again it's work that goes largely unnoticed in the expanding metropolis 25 meters above the ground four million people living on an island half the size of los angeles it's one of the richest and most culturally diverse countries in asia it's also said to be the most modern and efficient city in the world but not too long ago singapore was a very different place [Music] [Applause] if you can go from one end of the universe to the other end of the universe in 40 years i think singapore has traveled that journey i think one of the little known facts about singapore is is that it's one of the very few developing countries that has actually made the transition from developing to developed status and all in the space of 30 to 40 years in 1965 when singapore gained independence from malaysia it was poor rickshaws and old buses rattled along the streets and cars clogged the roadways of this tiny little island [Applause] we would have people 15 people living in a room in my case we had a family of six and we lived in a one-room house in singapore so it was you know a typical developing country in 1965 when singapore became independent i think we had the same per capita income as ghana about 500 per year singapore's new leaders set out to build a new nation they demolished old buildings and rehoused people in satellite towns and suburbs and to get them to work they revolutionized the commute [Music] its mass transit system is now one of the crowning jewels of singapore moving over one million people every day is the first country to boast heavy rail driverless trains singapore is also the only country in the world that regularly reminds its commuters how they are expected to behave please do not eat or drink on the railway premises thank you for your cooperation and that includes chewing gum and now infamous singaporean law do you know that the reason why chewing gum was banned in singapore i mean one of the reasons is that somebody would stick a piece of chewing gum and the doors of the train wouldn't close and so the train couldn't move so i think that's when the government got very upset and said hey this has got to stop singapore opened its first subway line in 1987 and has been expanding it ever since [Music] but before they started to dig they consulted mr chong an expert in the ancient art of feng shui many singaporeans were superstitious about digging a tunnel through the center of the city they were worried it would bring bad luck to singapore's economic hub well this is the place where you're surrounded by banks that's all the money is so mr chong went to work using an ancient feng shui compass he determined that the subway tunnel connecting the land across the river to the business center must run exactly north south the floor the energy is this way a good sign that would allow the chi a chinese word for energy to flow through the tunnels and this would bring prosperity not bad luck to singapore it's moving the energy energy must move and energy should not be stagnant just like a door when usually when the door is swing all the time you will not get a rusty door the door will be there and the door will never get attacked by worms so anything is moved will be a better and smooth flow there has been 130 kilometers of tunnels and tracks laid down on this small island it moves a quarter of singapore's population each day by 2010 an extra 29 stations will be built it's expected to be one of the most advanced transit systems in the world but getting there is not going to be easy there is another problem with the tunnel boring machine it's only moved a few feet and has hit heavy rock looks like pressure is getting higher it looks like a showcase so can you ask operator to stop the excavation hello there stop at the head the tunnel boring machine has once again grown to a halt it is now directly underneath the swimming pool chris has to make sure this doesn't turn into a disaster hi guys we've still got blockages here yeah we are still having a trouble with the rocks just down here yep these have been blocked in uh ring 251 yes since yesterday we are having with those rocks trouble with this choking in our pipes all right yeah and this is coming through the slurry discharge line before we get to the crusher yes that's what the problem is we're currently live with this problem we've gone through about two to three shifts now of picking up um big blocks of rock back stones that are caught up uh in our line and it's causing a blockage for us so that that causes a lot of downtime and it means we have to strip pipes uh can be really quite an issue for us but make it through sweetener [Music] a blockage in the pipes means too much pressure can build up in the front of the tunnel boring machine if there's a pressure buildup soul can drop potentially damaging the two condominiums chris's worries take him underground to check on the problem he's very aware that the tunneling machine is stopped in a precarious place what i'm a little bit concerned about is the tunnelboy machine currently is stationed right below the swimming pool between two large high-rise condominium buildings one of my concerns is throughout this process have you been able to maintain support to the face or to the front of the tunnel boring machine because that's what stops too much ground coming in have you managed to do that yeah we we didn't do any kind of heavy tvm showing we only did about 10 mm maximum chris dispatches a team of men to check out the condominiums they measure for any movement any changes below the ground will usually indicate changes above they also check for any shifting of the condominiums themselves [Music] okay what's up have you just done the readings now yeah so on this particular instrument here what's the movement you're talking two mill are you yeah it will mean right two millimeters is considered nothing anything more than 30 millimeters is when cracks could start appearing in buildings when the saw shifts so can their foundations all our instruments are showing that we've we've done a good job that we've balanced the pressures yeah already it's always that's the case we didn't have any sediment or we didn't have any noticeable changes so far all is safe meanwhile the rocks causing the blockage have been cleared the control room gives instructions to the driver below ground to start the giant drilling machine start decoration no one is more aware of singapore's dangerous soil conditions than the engineers working 30 meters below ground especially after april 20th 2004 when they had their worst disaster ever they were almost finished excavating a station pit like this one when the retaining walls holding these steel beams collapsed when the construction site caved in underground gas line snapped water mains broke and the six-lane highway right next to it buckled in two cement mixer and a crane toppled into the water-filled pit and four men were trapped inside finding bodies was not going to be an easy task for the rescue workers went down to the water we can't see anything at all so we have to fuel ourselves around and that's how we start the uh operation by filling ourselves around the water under the water the rescue teams search for bodies in the murky waters risky business as they face the chance of a further collapse you can hear screeching sound like the expansions of the steel bars and contraction and gives you the sense of insecurity around the sizer [Music] in the end three bodies were recovered the fourth was never found heavy rains made the rescue mission impossible we didn't finish the job we always try to at least recover the body so that you know we can give the family and the next of kin good close closure to the incident and for us unable to do that is yeah it's a it's a difficult thing for us and to accept the memories of 2004 still haunt many of the workers [Music] every day they pray to the earth gods to keep them safe as they remember the four lives lost the april days progress progress okay uh behind programs graham peterson has had to pick up the pieces of the accident a veteran tunnel engineer from london his job is to rebuild the old nickel highway station and he's having to do it in singapore's mucky soil a major factor in the collapse famous beautiful stuff for making putty but you put any pressure on it and it just does that black toothpaste has been described to me so consequently when it comes to tunneling medium it's not very good it needs constant support just like a fluid graham and his team are having to rebuild the station 100 meters from the collapsed area and bore a whole new set of tunnels in the rough alignment of the boat tunnels they start from here so we've now pulled the tunnels further to the south and you can see the station is now slightly further away from the buildings it's about 100 meters to the south yeah yeah yeah and then we got a very tight bend at the far end it was decided it was it's easier safer certainly safer to abandon it all it's a bit of a shame two perfectly good tunnels throw them away the old nickel highway station has now been almost completely covered over [Music] across the road they've started building the new station [Music] its supporting walls will be thicker and the station will be dug deeper all to avoid the disaster of 2004. the japanese crane operator keeps a fish hanging his window a symbol of good luck a few kilometers away graham and his team are dealing with another setback a condo building called hotkey house it sits right next to where they are excavating one of the new stations there's about 18 to 20 meters thick of marine clay underneath this building so all three consultants agreed that if we proceeded with the excavation the building would be in the danger so the decision that was taken was that we would acquire the building because paramount would be the safety of the people living there so they've started tearing it down once it's demolished they can start the excavating work again it's good to see the progress on this now i mean what about a few weeks we get this down yeah it's very good progression excavation yeah that's the key point as soon as this is down within the next you know four or five weeks we can get going on doing some work outside and doing getting on with the real work yeah this is just a long week after a very long wait yeah a very long way their obstacle is now being removed but for the 35 residents and seven shopkeepers of this building they've lost their homes and their [Music] livelihoods [Music] singapore is one of the most urbanized places on earth expanding its subway system underneath all this humanity is an almost impossible task sometimes it means knocking down buildings this condominium was in serious danger of a collapse with construction work going on right next door 35 people lost their homes and many businesses were raised to the ground [Music] mr tan fiang was the very first resident to move into the condo building in 1965 he now lives with his grandson above the family t-shirt store [Music] i i i tell questions the day he knows that we are moving off from the building he don't know how to say what he's very really heartbreak and he was like staying sitting there staring at the wall looking here and there he lost the contacts he lost her friends he lost everything he's very very sad this is sometimes the human cost of tunneling disturbing life above but there's one place on earth where destroying buildings to expand a subway line is strictly forbidden [Music] historic amsterdam many of its buildings date back to the 17th century it was one of the richest cities in the world soon they will be driving a tunnel underneath the city and soil softer than singapore's and the challenge is not one of these ancient buildings can be touched no one is more sensitive about this than the vice mayor of amsterdam mark van der host it's very very important for everybody who lives here the city is kept as the way it is because all these historical buildings it just feels deep in your heart if you if you touch it with one finger people get angry and i think they're right when the city put in its subway line 30 years ago it was impossible to use a tunnel boring machine technology had not advanced far enough to needle through such soupy soil so they dug the old-fashioned way ripping open the streets and destroying buildings along their path not a popular move in this medieval city tensions mounted as homeowners of the condemned buildings formed human barricades it filled up it built up and then suddenly it came to come to a burst it was march 24 1975. police arrived with tear gas and armored cars to force people out of their houses by the end of the day 30 people were injured and many more arrested [Music] only a few left the easy way it was one of the worst riots in amsterdam's history that was actually the start of two decades of let's say metrophobia even the word metro line as we we call it here in in amsterdam was more or less forbidden all plans for expanding their metro system were put on hold but today the congestion in the historic heart of amsterdam has only gotten worse there is simply no more room on the streets for extra trams or buses if you want to improve the public transportation system you have to go underground and that's why we're making the north south subway right to the heart of the city center from north to south [Music] the city has finally greenlit a plan that's been on hold for 30 years three kilometers of the route will run through the most historic part of the city center the deal this time is that not one of the 1500 buildings can be demolished in the spongy soil of amsterdam that's an almost impossible task it's like flying to the moon by riding a bicycle i think it's the best description if you look at amsterdam it's impossible but still we're doing it [Music] they've passed that impossible task onto a handful of experienced engineers and this is the last excavation this is the video this is the baenkov building this stop there oh yes i can these men are virtual tunneling before the real work begins they use computer models to protect the exact effect the tunnel machine will have on the historic buildings these predictions are critical to the success of this project that building is all red because it's in the inside of the curvature the system tells us that we need to be very careful at that spot it's a challenging tunneling route with tight corners and narrow straights disturb the wood foundation that these buildings sit on and they could sink in an instant what we're actually doing we're driving a tunnel under the city and we're almost tickling the piled hose where all the buildings are founded on and this specific engineering topic hasn't been dealt with in the past there are museums embassies and even the royal palace at stake a lot is resting on the virtual tunneling predictions so it's the best we can do at the moment there's no reference in the world for a project like this so at a certain time you have to start when there's no guts there's no glory so they've started digging the station's pits only meters away from buildings it's precise work that requires a close watch for any shifting soil and that's done by robotic stations computers measure 7000 points every day all along the tunneling route it's the biggest monitoring program of its kind in the world this building has settled almost 30 millimeters if there's any unusual movement the engineers are the first to find out the system warned us when settlement was ongoing during the weekend while there was no construction going on at that time so we were alerted and we thought well what's going on there's only one thing we could do that was fill the excavation pit with water again to make things stable the building they are most worried about is central station one of the signature landmarks of amsterdam [Music] it's also the busiest transport hub in the netherlands welcoming 300 000 passengers a day now they're getting ready to do the impossible drill a tunnel right underneath but before they can start they have to rebuild the foundation constructing two massive columns 30 meters deep today they're working in the grand entrance hole pouring cement into those two foundation columns it's done using high pressure work that the city engineers are overseeing like hawks what special measures have you taken well if you look up you can see these protective curtains we have installed you know we don't want the risk that it's all exploding onto the walls and the ceiling we have taken these protective measures to avoid it and so far no incidents have occurred minor incidents but they're not out of any importance actually yeah johann bosch is the city's chief engineer i certainly would be glad if this is all over he knows what's at stake this building belongs to our national heritage anyone harming this building has a big problem you're satisfied with the monitoring system performance installed in total 54 prisms on the faceheart of the central station and they are being measured weekly to see what the settlements have been on the past house we have to be careful yeah you can see that we are jet grounding at the moment yeah obviously something went wrong in the process there's no room for error any mistakes in the project will be shut down nothing may go wrong because when we damage this old inner city the project will be stopped and this would be a real shame for the men and women working right across the street as construction workers dig archaeologists sift through the excavated soil a golden opportunity for the man in charge of preserving amsterdam's history this is just what came up in the last hour that's not bulk material but those are individual fights we select already by eye for example this is a clipping from the outer hull of a ship probably uh 14 15th century we have a piece of early medieval ceramics probably 13th century just a couple of defines jersky garonski's team is pulling out about 200 finds a day in a sport which was once the medieval harbour of amsterdam hundreds of ships per year went in and out from the 1300s up till the 1900s all these ships left of course that traces in the in the riverbed itself and while we're excavating here we're finding hundreds and hundreds of tools dealing with the maritime activities in the home of amsterdam as construction workers dig deeper the artifacts get older they are now working eight meters below the surface and most of what's coming up is medieval this is the small caliber cannonball of stone so this is probably also medieval let's say 1500 16 16th century archaeology is the science of the unexpected i didn't expect to find the cannonball where we find them of course we can do predictions but what we actually find every day we can't guess so every day is a surprise [Music] [Music] is piecing together history looking for clues of life dating back to the 12th century when the first people moved to amsterdam items which will one day find their way into a public exhibition integrating archaeology with the building process you have an advantage of two results in one in one enterprise a new metro will be built at the same time on that site where the metro is built history will be recovered this is one of the benefits of tunneling in an ancient city a perfect opportunity to unearth the past [Music] back in singapore it's business as usual at serengun subway station but 25 meters below the ground engineers are dealing with one of their biggest challenges yet they're digging a tunnel underneath an existing train station to do it they have to remove the massive steel piles the station was built on and they're doing it by hand it will take them one and a half years to go a mere 180 meters this is grueling and dangerous work the ground is porous and full of water which means collapsible soil a serious threat to the train station above gopali krishan is one of the engineers paid to make sure there's no tragedy in the making just face the prison to salvo if there's too much settlement in the station i mean the tracks will obviously will follow the station it will get bent so if there are settlement in excess of the uh of the maximum allowed then there is a chance that the trains may be real or close into some other problems and which is which which will cause major disaster his team constantly monitors the ground for any sign of shifting soil yesterday's reading is okay okay and no substantial movement what was the maximum the difference is just within one mm we didn't want to oh that's great is that ok salvam the station has already settled 2 millimeters they're going to have to go in overnight and reset the tracks to their original level necessary measures to avoid derailment [Music] several kilometers away at another construction site they're getting ready to blast 25 meters below the ground they're building an escape shaft in case they have to evacuate trains between two subway stations they've hit hard rock so they're using dynamite the man put the dynamite into pre-drilled holes six meters deep they're using 73 kilograms of dynamite right in the center of a residential neighborhood and next to a school playground door-to-door warnings are given to make sure no one ventures outside in about an hour's time we're gonna do the blasting which i'm sure you're already aware of yes the siren will go on for 30 seconds and then after that just one blast okay we'll make sure as well that the children are not at the playground at that moment yeah they would there now all right thank you so much thank you bye you don't have any small children in your house right so then they find only the dogs but i think they are quite well behaved no no it's not going to be very loud but you will definitely hear the sound the weather can change quickly in singapore and it has a precarious situation for the men setting the dynamite [Music] because the weather is turning back it's um we're expecting a bit of lightning we're using electrical charges so we have to blast it before the lightning comes we don't want any interference with the lightning and the electronic detonators with the storm closing in the team is rushing to get the blast ready in time if they miss this window schedules will be thrown into chaos expanding singapore subway system can be a hazardous business especially when the construction crew has to work in residential neighborhoods these men are blasting right next to a school playground they're building an escape shaft an underground exit point between two subway stops it means using dynamite a dangerous game when the skies above could bring lightning [Music] the charges are set and the sight is evacuated everyone appears to be inside and the storm seems to be holding off [Music] [Music] removing the cover reveals a textbook blast five more blasts to go and this small part of the singapore subway expansion will be finished [Music] when completed singapore will have 29 new stations added to their state-of-the-art subway system [Music] many singaporeans don't know it but many of the stations are also built to be bomb shelters a not so foreign idea halfway across the [Music] world [Music] in september of 1940 the sound of air raid sirens filled the streets of london this is the music they play every night the germans had occupied the skies the blitz was on tens of thousands of people fled to the london underground the world's oldest subway the tube became their refuge a place to eat sleep and stay clear of the bombs dropping above many of the 80 stations used as shelters will have two canteens each tons of food are consumed every night to prepare and deliver it is the work of over a thousand people over the many months to come the london underground saved countless lives this inspiring story gave singapore an idea what we are seeing here is the closing of the entrance blast resistant door this is a sliding door and it is important for us to seal off the entire station before it can function as a civil defense shelter [Music] almost every new station singapore is building these days can be transformed into a state-of-the-art defense shelter and the flick of a switch there are 20 tons of concrete in each door nothing's getting through here this will prevent the ingress of contaminants that may be outside in the external environment from entering into the protected space this will also prevent glass leakage from the outside entering into the shelter so when the entrance blast doors are closed the occupants to the shelter will have to come by this way if they are found to be contaminated they'll be directed to enter our decontamination chamber and we have a series of showers to do a decontamination procedure before they will be directed to join the rest of the shelteries in the clean area of the [Music] shelter singaporeans are master planners they prepare for everything several stations are completely built but trains won't stop there for another seven years they just like to be ready [Music] it's all part of the grand vision for singapore to have one of the most comprehensive mass transit systems in the world move people quickly and you've got a fast moving economy it's one of the ways singapore has managed to leap forward from third world status to first in the space of a few decades a mighty accomplishment indeed [Music] you

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Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, How To, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, construction, full documentary, Science documentary, telescopes, Building the biggest, engineering explained, engineering documentary, engineering marvels, singapore subway train, singapore subway station, singapore mrt train, singapore mrt evolution, subway construction documentary, subway construction time lapse, MRT, mass rapid transit singapore, mass rapid transit systems, Singapore

Id: j93PAnmZbVk

Length: 45min 35sec (2735 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 06 2021