Chapter 6 - Criminal Liability by FYP - The Collapse of Nicoll Highway

FYP — 2015-02-10 15:00:35 UTC

1. Nishimatsu Construction Company Limited (NCC)

FYP — 2015-02-10 15:03:01 UTC

2. Officers of the Company

FYP — 2015-02-10 15:04:24 UTC

Kazuo Shimada, Paul Broome and Shun Sugawara are liable for s33(3) of the Factories act committed by NCC of s88(13) of the Act

88(13):Where an offence committed by a company, or other body of persons is proved to have committed with the consent or to have been facilitated by any director, chairman or other officer of the company, he, as well as the company shall be deemed to be guilty of the offence

Kazuo Shimada

FYP — 2015-02-10 15:05:53 UTC

3. OP (ST)

FYP — 2015-02-10 15:07:28 UTC

Ng Seng Yong in breach of Condition 8 of the permit, liable under s19(10) of the Building Control Act

The Building Control Act (Cap 29) places great emphasis on the role of the QP (ST) in ensuring the safety of building works

Condition 8: '' ...The QP(ST) shall exercise due diligence and reasonable care in monitoring the excavation works, assess the reading and when any of the critical levels is reached, instruct te builder to take corrective action...''

Ng Seng Yong

FYP — 2015-02-10 15:13:31 UTC

Relied on his staff to report to him who unfortunately did not
Was entrusted with critical safety responsibility but was obviously out of touch with critical happenings on the ground

His failure had serious implications on the safety management of C824

Not being aware about the exceeded revised design levels and that the pre-loads struts at levels 7,8,9 were not being retained.
Coupled with his knowledge that the sacrificial JGP would have been removed in the course of the next level excavations
he would have ordered work to stop atType M3. If so the catastrophic collapse could have been prevented

Ng Seng Yong

FYP — 2015-02-10 15:14:18 UTC

NSY was not aware of a number of critical happenings:

Readings were not taken for I-104 from 10-25 March 2004
Joshua Ong, LTA's Design Manager did not do a full reanalysis of the temporary works
Revised design level at Type M3 breached
Second back analysis for Type M3
Follow through for first Type M3 back analysis
Readings were not taken for I-104 from 18 and 19 April 2004
NCC not carrying out block excavation for the 10th level of M3
Change in sequence of hacking of tunnel eyes
Water bucklings at Nicoll Highway Station
Michael Eng not generating any trend in terms of deflection of the wall
Risk Analysis Report by NCC (evaluation of nature of risk and its measures

4. LTA

FYP — 2015-02-10 15:15:09 UTC

The failure to stop work is clearly the failing of the entire LTA C824 team:

Ample information known to LTA that should have alerted them to the potential danger of collapse - failure at Launch Shaft 2, waler bucklings, exceeded design levels, expert's warning etc... in fact there were serious concerns within LTA regarding the safety of the temporary works
Untenable for LTA to say that they did not have the relevant information to stop work
None of the LTA officers down the chain to the engineers on site considered the stoppage of work

Though this does not amount to a criminal offence, their mindset should be carefully addressed and this should serve as a lesson learnt

FYP — 2015-02-10 15:16:11 UTC

The committee has examined the conduct of every party involved in the project who has failed in the discharge of their duties. This can range from deliberate action, reckless indifference, oblivious carelessness and poor attitude to safety.