Metro 4 drills to be temporarily halted

The National Transport Authority (NKH) has suspended drilling the tunnel for Budapest's fourth metro line, and the drill will stop at Gellért tér in Buda for two months, reports index.hu. Further delays can be expected after it is restarted, as it will have to stop again under the Danube for two to four months as the construction of the Fővám tér station in Pest is late. Additional expenses caused by the delays can be as much as over Ft 1 billion (nearly €4.12 million).

Gusztáv Klados, operative project manager of DBR Metro Project Directorate, told the portal that the mining authority of the NKH suspended the works at Gellért tér on August 7, because a connecting tunnel - where trains can cross to another tunnel - did not have the necessary permits. Apparently, constructor Bamco consortium was not aware that connecting tunnels needed permits as well.

Klados said the drill will have to stay at Gellért tér for two months at the most, until the permit arrives. He added that the completion of the whole project will not be necessarily late as a result of this delay. The deadline for completion is 2011.

However, since completion of the Fővám tér station on the other side of the Danube will also be late, the drill will have to be stopped again under the river. Klados said: "If I am an optimist, I would say that Fővám tér will be ready to accept the drills in March of next year, and if I am a pessimist, then I would say May."

He also said that he did not want to try estimating the additional costs caused by the delays, but at a recent project he worked on in Malaysia, the penalty was between Ft 5 million and Ft 6 million per day per drill.

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