Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said at the sinkhole site that 1,700 cubic metres of crushed stone had been levelled over the sand-filled sinkhole, which now appeared stable enough for people to walk on, reports the Bangkok Post.
Nearby structures, including police flats, Vajira Hospital and nearby commercial buildings, showed no movement or additional cracking, except for the Samsen police station, he said.
The next step, the governor added, would be the demolition of the Samsen police station followed by road reconstruction. The demolition was expected to take about four days. Because the station’s floors were built using the post-tension technique, the work must be done with great care to prevent the slings from snapping, he said.
Mr Chadchart noted that no date had been set yet for the reopening of Samsen Road.
He said the project would also involve restoring subway tunnels beneath the road and reconstructing underground utilities, including water mains and sewers. All work would proceed cautiously with safety as the top priority.
The sinkhole, which appeared on Sept 24 on Samsen Road in Dusit district, formed above an underground railway station being built for the Mass Rapid Transit Authority’s (MRTA) Purple Line extension. It initially measured about 30 metres wide, 30 metres long and 20 metres deep.
The state-run MRTA attributed the incident to the area’s water-saturated, soft soil, which cracked and flowed into the tunnels and the under-construction Vajira Hospital station on the Purple Line.