Gas line ruptures, pavement, sidewalk collapse at condominium construction site
Eva Salinas
Sun
A 20-centimetre water main burst Monday at the corner of Bute and Pender, swallowing pavement and sidewalk. Photograph by : Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun
City engineering staff look over a collapsed portion of Pender that is expected to disrupt traffic for a week. Photograph by : Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun
VANCOUVER – A major commuter link to the Lions Gate Bridge in downtown Vancouver is closed today because a section of Pender Street collapsed next to a condominium construction site Monday morning.
A 20-centimetre water main burst at the corner of Pender and Bute streets, plunging sections of sidewalk and street into the excavation, causing damage estimated at hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The street could be closed as long as a week.
“It’s a transit route, one of the major routes connecting to the Lions Gate [Bridge],” said Tom Timm, a city engineering official who was at the site Monday.
The main burst shortly after 10 a.m. in the 1200-block West Pender, sending thousands of litres of water gushing into the construction site and rupturing an adjacent gas line. The water pressure quickly caused giant slabs of concrete, pieces of sidewalk, utility wires and part of the road to crumble into the site.
The noise sent Richard Kurland to the window of his 27th-storey condo on Melville Street.
He looked out to see sparks and flames erupting from the gas line. The roar of the water and the noise of the road breaking up sounded “as if a house was falling down,” he said.
The debris and mud quickly extinguished the fire.
Kurland called 911, and watched as crews arrived. “One fellow delicately danced across the street, and threw a couple of pylons,” he said.
Access from Thurlow to Jervis, and from Melville to West Hastings was blocked off and Murray Wightman, maintenance superintendent for Vancouver’s street operations, said it will take at least a week to repair the road.
Wightman said it appears that broken water main was the result of, not the cause of, the damage, although he was not sure what caused the failure.
The water, gas and electricity in the immediate vicinity were quickly shut off.
Wightman said there was concern that a 60-centimetre water main under the area would also break. Crews rushed to turn off water to that main because, Wightman said, it would be disastrous if it also broke. He said the damage will definitely be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Police Insp. Rollie Woods estimated the water main was spewing thousands of gallons a minute before it was turned off. He said the site is 15-metres deep and is being prepared for a high-rise condominium.
Within hours, the water pooled at the bottom of the construction site and the pavement of the eastbound lane of Pender, which initially only cracked and sagged, caved in.
Representatives of the city engineering department, waterworks, BC Hydro, and Matcon, the excavation company, assessed the damage.
Timm would not speculate on the cost of the damage, but said the city’s position is that the damage was the result of the excavation work being done.
“The shoring system failed,” he said, referring to the concrete and steel that was supposed to hold in the street wall.
He said there may be some dispute with that finding but the immediate concern is to reopen the street.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005