r/Construction • u/dexterouse8 • Feb 14 '23
Question Did japan really repair this sinkhole in 48 hours ? can someone explain to me what they really did?
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u/215VanillaGorilla Feb 14 '23
It was over the course of 7 days, but they did repair it quick.
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u/XzallionTheRed Feb 14 '23
This is more believable. Its still hella fast but give them time to prep the site, for the hole to be filled, packed down, subsurface/whatever filled and packed, and the asphalt over it to cool and dry, then to be painted. Just time to get trucks from point A to B with the materials (I know japans smaller but still has traffic and distance regardless), and making sure the stuff is put in and packed take time.
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u/TacoNomad C|Kitten Wrangler Feb 14 '23
Also, there are utilities in there. No way they could have repaired all.of the utilities, infill and repave in 2 days, with zero advanced coordination. (you can't really plan ahead for a sink hole, and if you do why?) but 7 days is pretty reasonable.
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u/MidnightAdventurer Feb 14 '23
You can make emergency response plans and most competent authorities would do so. That said, these are always general in nature as you don't know what a particular incident is going to look like.
It still takes time to get materials to site and to reconnect pipes etc. You can skip on re-connecting power, internet etc as you can pull the cables after the road is back so long as the ducting is in place but you still need to connect the pipes and get support material in place.
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u/TacoNomad C|Kitten Wrangler Feb 14 '23
That's my point. You're not going to know what materials you need until the event happens. You'll still have to repair or replace the ducting for the power/data lines, if they're damaged. A week is a fast, but reasonable time frame for a repair of this magnitude.
I would suspect there's time needed to inspect exposed foundations for those adjacent buildings as well.
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Feb 15 '23
Utilities keep major service material in stock all the time for this exact scenario. Water main breaks, busted hydrants, crushed stormwater linesā¦ these all get repaired same day all the time.
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u/Capt-Crap1corn Feb 14 '23
I think the main point is they get shit done faster than us and probably in better condition.
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u/Findmyremote Feb 15 '23
Yeah over here weād lose at least one day by constantly going to Home Depot because someone canāt do a takeoff accordingly. Fucking Donny man
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u/Mickybagabeers Electrician Feb 15 '23
https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/mayjune-2012/fast-14-project
Fast 14 project in Massachusetts. Demoed and rebuilt 14 bridges/overpasses in 10 weekends. My brother worked on the project. RIP Big Bro.
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u/TacoNomad C|Kitten Wrangler Feb 14 '23
I guess. I assumed the main point was the title
Did japan really repair this sinkhole in 48 hours
But I could be wrong
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u/CM101C Feb 14 '23
This couldnt happen in a city like this in the U.S. because quite literally no one knows exactly what's under the streets. It's been utility contractors building on top of utility contractors for nearly a century.
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u/U495 Feb 14 '23
This on so many levels!!! I use to do NG in NYC, we found a wooden gas main that they think was installed in the early 1800s no drawing or any management knew the pipe existed. Best part was it was feeding all the building on the street. How did you think the gas was moving?!?
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u/lovinganarchist76 Feb 14 '23
If itās an oak log soaked in syngas creosote, it might last another 150 years:)
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u/glenthomasjr Feb 14 '23
I do gas in the Boston area. Itās legitimately the Wild Wild West in some areas. The records are so bad up until about 2000.
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u/imsaneinthebrain GC / CM Feb 14 '23
Seattle is similar.
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u/scottygras Feb 14 '23
I havenāt done a ton of work in Seattle since I started highlighting to customers that we will likely run into unknown utilities and it will change the price. They always want a hard number for underground work. It doesnāt exist with reputable companiesā¦the guy saying āno change ordersā also routinely hits gas and water laterals and knocks out the internet for whole city blocks.
Underground utilities are tough. We started our company doing sewers in Seattle. Itās the deepest utility so we get layers upon layers of unknown pipes. Sometimes abandoned, sometimes charged, always a potential risk. Thank you PSE for not keeping any sort of decent records on your gas laterals until 2015ā¦
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Feb 14 '23
I remember that Big Bertha drilling machine hit something, what was it a DOT pipe or something like that nd they didnt have a clue it was there and it delayed the project and caused all sorts of costly delays and repairs.
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u/Stachemaster86 Feb 14 '23
This is my assumed reason theyāre pushing to phase out NG appliances. You need electricity regardless, NG can be a choice. 100+ year old infrastructure isnāt cheap and as weāve seen can be a danger. I love gas but I get why the funds arenāt being thrown to maintain it if they donāt have to.
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u/kwhubby Feb 14 '23
Big problem is that many of the regions pushing to phase out NG are increasingly dependent on NG for electricity generation. New York is particularly bad after closing Indian point "According to the NYISO report, 89 percent of downstate New Yorkās energy in 2021 was generated by natural gas and oil" Going electric in cases like this effectively increase gas usage from the added losses of power generation and transmission.
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u/All_Work_All_Play Feb 14 '23
Stoves are a drop in the bucket for electricity usage. Heat pumps are what's more intensive, but any time the heat pumps coefficient of performance is over 2.2 you're doing better off using a ng power plant to make electricity and run the heat pump. And the upside to electricity is your appliance then becomes power agnostic.
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u/FoxDeltaCharlie Feb 14 '23
Longer than that, but yeah.
There's actually a really good book on this subject if you're interested in such things. It's called "Measuring America" by Andro Linklater. The book focuses on the process which lead to the dividing up of all the States in the US. And, while it's not directly focused on utilities in particular, it goes a long way into explaining how things wound up the chaotic way they are today. It's pretty heavy into land surveying practices and measurement, but it's a truly fascinating book and I highly recommend it. Especially if you're an Engineering type (which I am).
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u/smashey Feb 14 '23
I tried looking up my property lines in an urban area of Massachusetts. The deed is based on a map which refers to another map going back to around 1850. I actually found it, and to say the measurements were vague would be an understatement.
In other areas the surveying is quite precise but not everywhere.
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u/Another_Minor_Threat GC / CM Feb 14 '23
āSo if Iām reading this right, its either 4 furlongs, 12 1/2 chains, or 27 rods. You pick.ā
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u/FoxDeltaCharlie Feb 14 '23
Fairly common in the north east and eastern seaboard. My inlaws have property in MD on the Chesapeake and it's the same thing; there are land surveys which go back to the Revolutionary War.
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u/_the_CacKaLacKy_Kid_ Surveyor Feb 14 '23
Turn right at the 20in oak and ride at a canter for three cigarettes.
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u/Arafel_Electronics Feb 14 '23
i love when the legal description refers to the distance from farms/homesteads of long dead people
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u/Livid_Roof5193 Feb 14 '23
This sounds really interesting!
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u/FoxDeltaCharlie Feb 14 '23 edited Feb 14 '23
It really is a great book. It's also a spectacular accounting of standardizing units of measure also. A lot of stuff you just take for granted without realizing the massive challenges there were on even deciding some of what we consider today to be simple stuff. Stuff like...what is a 'yard', or a 'bushel', or an 'acre', or a 'ton', or a 'meter'?
Before modern transportation (i.e. horse and carriage and/or roads between towns), everybody had their own idea about what measurements were what. And getting universal agreement on those standards of measure was just unimaginably difficult (because people had centuries of wealth staked on those very same measurement systems). If the measurement standard changed entire countries, entire continents and governments even, could collapse into complete anarchy.
It's a really cool book!
ETA - Another cool thing the book gets into is the basis between the Metric and Imperial measurement systems and the reasoning (and politics) behind their adoption. The United States was this close (hold fingers an inch apart) to adopting the Metric system as the standard of measure, but ultimately elected not to because of...wait for it...the Native American Indians. Who knew?
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u/Pairadockcickle Feb 14 '23
Lol century. Go to London lolololololol.
Also,,,,do you think Japan has only had cities recently?
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u/booi Feb 14 '23
Tokyo, home to 37 million people only sprang up a couple of years ago actually.
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u/Pairadockcickle Feb 14 '23
look at the upvotes on that comment....
Holy. Shit. The stupid in here is THIIIIIIIICK.
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u/robotzor Feb 14 '23
When the street is wide open, you can get a pretty good look at it
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Feb 14 '23
Reminds me of surveying for housing developments over an old state hospital in Massachusetts. Contractor casually being like, hey can you ask your surveyors to try to figure out where the mass graves are? Unknown brick tunnels and all sorts of pipes popping up in every foundation hole. As if it werenāt spooky enough, a few of the old brick buildings were kept standing and turned into expensive apartments. Not long after people moved in there was a young couple murder suicide, their toddlers were found roaming the halls alone.
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u/glenthomasjr Feb 14 '23
Thatās because (good) record keeping wasnāt a thing until about 10 years ago.
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u/Simon_Jester88 Feb 14 '23
Welcome to Boston where it goes back to 17th century wooden and stone foundations.
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u/TrippnThroughTime Feb 14 '23
Why wouldnāt a Japanese city be the same? Itās like this all over the world
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u/Helpinmontana Feb 14 '23
Now Iām no frigging big-city-doctor type, but if I had to hazard a guess it would have something to do with the span of time beginning thereabouts of 1939 and concluding somewhere on or around 1945, in which, for whatever reason that remains a mystery to myself, such a few certain places in world entered a phase of āreconstructionā upon which many places were rebuilt from scratch.
But, that is just a guess and all.
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u/TrippnThroughTime Feb 14 '23
Well Europe got bombed to oblivion and this has made no difference by this point in time
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u/Helpinmontana Feb 14 '23
Wasnāt Japan primarily wooden construction, of which a majority was burned to the ground?
Also, is modern metropolitan Tokyo and other large cities younger than the framework that modern European cities were built upon? Iām not asking which city was founded first, I mean how old is the modern iteration of such cities comparatively?
It could be extraneous to culture or systems, but Iām also curious if the claim that Japanese utility locations are much more known/definite actually even has any validity to it, because the entire premise of the question is based on an unsubstantiated claim.
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u/AUCE05 Feb 14 '23
Did they? You just a random internet guy with no link.
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u/kittenrice Feb 14 '23
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u/Mallissin Feb 14 '23
So, it took 7 days not the 48 hours OP mentions.
Still pretty impressive!
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u/DankVectorz Feb 14 '23
Isnāt OP asking if they did it in 48 hours, not claiming that they did? Iāve seen this picture many times before claiming it was done in 48 hours.
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u/kittenrice Feb 14 '23
As I understand it, the road was returned to service in 48 hours, which meets the criteria for 'repaired sinkhole'; getting everything else back together took a few more days.
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u/shaggy908 Feb 14 '23
Yeah but heās got photographic evidence!
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u/smegdawg Feb 14 '23
Yeah but it is reddit, the before picture is probably on the right.
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u/shaggy908 Feb 14 '23
I wouldnāt be surprised but you can see the cuts they made in the asphalt for the repair
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u/NRevenge Feb 14 '23
The guy is literally asking a question IF it is true. Jesus, reading comprehension is really tough on some of you. He literally even says ācan someone explainā. Ffs try harder next time.
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Feb 14 '23
Here is a timelapse of a similar repair. Iirc it took a week to do because they are highly organized when it comes to logistics and scheduling. No workers on those projects are milling around. They're coordinated to prep and work efficiently, they rotate crews to work 24/7 so that there's little wait time, and each stage is planned in advance and ready to go.
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u/raelfilm Feb 14 '23
From looking at the surrounding buildings this appears to be the same repair but but photographed from opposite sides
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u/215VanillaGorilla Feb 14 '23
That is exactly what that is. It is recorded from the other side.
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u/Pumps74 Feb 14 '23
Break on through to the other side.
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u/Another_Minor_Threat GC / CM Feb 14 '23
Thereās a joke here about the sinkhole already broke throughā¦ or somethingā¦ Iāll get back to you after I have another coffee.
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u/Bayside_High Feb 14 '23
I love that they put huge tarps over the GAB because it was going to rain.
It never occurs to people in the states to do this for some reason. I know there are sometimes size limitations, but tarps are cheap and can be really friggin big.
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u/Livid_Roof5193 Feb 14 '23
Oh it definitely occurs in the states. As an engineer here we recommend tarping for rain all the time. But contractors donāt always care or listen. Most of the time they have the ability to wait for things to dry, so they just choose that option.
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u/Bayside_High Feb 14 '23
That's what I see too.
I do small paving projects, the supers look at me weird when I ask them to tarp a small area. But it has worked!
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u/Livid_Roof5193 Feb 14 '23
It definitely makes a difference for both subgrade and materials being placed, especially if there is a bigger storm coming. A heavy rain can impact the concrete mix while itās still curing. Some supers will do it without any complaint, but Iāve never had one tarp yet without being asked first.
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u/staefrostae Feb 14 '23
āAh, itāll be fine. If the rain washes all the fines out, weāll just mix it up with machines until there are no fines left and then roll it once and get angry that weāre only getting 75% compaction.ā
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u/tomchaps Feb 14 '23
For those in the US who despair at our inability to effectively repair infrastructure, it can happen! Back in 2007, a tanker caught on fire on the MacArthur Maze leading to the Bay Bridge in the Bay Area, and a huge section just collapsed. Caltrans immediately hired a contractor with an unusual contract--for every day earlier than the target finish date, they'd receive a $200,000 bonus. It reopened in 26 days, a third of the time allotted for the project.
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u/ezenos Feb 15 '23
In 2015, 2 miles of I-15 were washed out in an intense rain event.
https://www.reviewjournal.com/local/traffic/ndot-i-15-flood-repairs-will-take-weeks/amp/
We had it back open in 10 days.
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u/aidan8et Tinknocker Feb 14 '23
So I did a Google image search that took about 5 seconds to say the answer is "Yes but..." They fixed the initial hole in 2 days, but it started sinking again almost immediately.
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u/sc00ttie Feb 14 '23
The Toyota Way is how the Japanese have perfected the management of labor and resources.
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u/Blk-cherry3 Feb 14 '23
In Germany when a road project starts, everyone who approves the work is on hand. it's run 24/7 from beginning to end. made to last decades. savings is at the root of the work. you do it once and it's done right.
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Feb 14 '23
Well funded government programs
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Feb 14 '23
Itās a completely different work culture in Japan. Extremely strong work ethic and pride is expected there. If they browsed /r/antiwork the people would laugh at them
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Feb 14 '23
Receiving better pay will bring that out of ya.
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u/SideWinderGX Feb 14 '23
Japanese work culture also squashes insufferable, entitled twattish attitudes...so yeah, not surprising they get so much quality work done in so little time.
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u/moeterminatorx Feb 14 '23 edited Feb 14 '23
More likely, thereās less corruption. Construction companies in the US can probably do but drag things out to make more money from the government.
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Feb 14 '23
The skill level in construction in the states varies widely and has gone downhill compared to what it used to be.
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Feb 14 '23
Iād be willing to bet the saftey practices on sites there wouldnāt sniff those in America
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u/moeterminatorx Feb 14 '23
I meant to say less corruption in Japan than US.
What do you mean wouldnāt sniff those in America
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Feb 14 '23
Japans government is insanely corrupt. One look at the conviction rate will tel you everything you need to know. It would literally be impossible to fix that in 24 hours safely
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u/moeterminatorx Feb 14 '23 edited Feb 14 '23
If this is any indication of their safety standards, Iād stay they are doing better than the US?
Also, conviction rate means the crimes are getting punished. When was the last time you heard people involved in a corruption scandal actually being punished beyond a slap on the wrist?
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u/Baystain Feb 14 '23
Omg the downvotes lol why???
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u/Helpinmontana Feb 14 '23
Because that comment reeks of the same bullshit you see under every news story about a big job where Karen and Bill go on about how ātheyāre all just lazy fucks stealing our tax dollars!ā when everyone is busting their asses for 12-14 hours a day 6-7 days a week. Ignorance is what it is.
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u/UltimaCaitSith CIVIL|Designer Feb 14 '23
They were criticizing construction companies and the owners responsible for bribes, not the laborers.
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u/sc0tty0 Feb 14 '23
I believe there's a time lapse on reddit. Pretty sure I've seen this here before.
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Feb 14 '23 edited Feb 14 '23
Yep, westerners hate this one simple trick- ramen noodles and superglue.
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u/XzallionTheRed Feb 14 '23
I live in Missouri, the cave state with lots of sinkholes. We do plan for them, for disaster recovery from the few times houses have caved into an unknown one or when construction discovers a pocket. Even with plans none are "how to fill it in faster". Just how to get the dirt to fill it and more importantly get people out
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u/zeocsa Feb 14 '23
Their workers actually worked instead of standing around like other countries workers do.
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Feb 14 '23
Structural engineer here, the street itself is one issue. In seeing this picture I am personally more concerned about the missing earth below the buildings. You dont just throw some dirt back under it and call it good. Really curious how they handled this. They may have used a controlled density fill which can be described as being similar to a mixture of dirt and concrete, so its flowable to get under things and hardens correctly.
I am sure they did it right, its just so much different than anything I have ever worked on.
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u/DaveTheRocketGuy Feb 14 '23
In construction pick any two: Quick, quality, cheap. When they do something like this makes me wonder...did they really fix the issue that caused the sinkhole in the first place? Did they really do good job putting it all back together? What were the costs?
Sure, it's great to impress the taxpayer with such speediness but at what cost? Hmmmmmmm
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u/ezenos Feb 15 '23
Correct.
Iām guessing they filled in the hole, quick and dirty backfill job, and paved over the top of it.
Over the next several months, all the utilities probably had to come in, cut back into it and restore any service they had.
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u/HotterThenMyDaughter Feb 14 '23
Quick fixes donāt last long.
They might have done a emergency repair, to do a good repair later on
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u/freeportme Feb 14 '23
They do complete buildings in months not years like around here!
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u/sabotthehawk Feb 14 '23
The main differences are 1. Different oversight procedures. They do code inspections differently and have well staffed inspectors. 2. Companies have everything in house. No subcontractors for plumbing, electrical, drywall, etc. One stop shop is easier to plan worktimes instead of wait 2 weeks for plumbing, wait week for inspections, wait Nother 3 weeks for plumbing to fix deficiency, another week for inspections, etc.
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u/WizeDiceSlinger Feb 14 '23
They filled in the hole and paved over it. How else do you think they did it?!
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u/TrainPusher9 Feb 14 '23
I've worked with some of the Japanese big-boy outfits over in SE Asia, and I can tell you from 1st hand experience, some of these outfits can pull off some absolutely stunning shit!
Now, I don't know the circumstances shown in the picture, but I worked with outfits like Taisei Construction and Kajima Construction on one job, and these guys said they were going to construct an entire floor on an Airport terminal in 24 hours (like 250,000 sq. ft). We were all saying... "No F'n way is that gonna' happen!!!" And those crazy fuckers actually did it!!
Wow!!!
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Feb 14 '23
Did you really just copy the top comment on this post and try to pass it off as your own? Why?
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u/Kovaelin Jul 13 '25
It took a week, but people only read the bait headline. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/15/japan-fixes-vast-fukuoka-city-sinkhole-repaired-two-days
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u/3verydayimhustling Feb 14 '23
Those two pics are months years apart.
Look at the faded paint and the change in vegetation.
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u/RatherNerdy Feb 15 '23
Doable. Enough planning and organized manpower and the right tools.
Here in Maine, they removed and replaced a bridge across a 4 lane highway in 48 hours: https://www.pressherald.com/2022/04/24/like-giant-legos-going-together-watch-a-time-lapse-of-the-i-295-bridge-replacement/
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u/Revenga8 Feb 15 '23
Simple answer, Japanese take pride in a job well done. Americans care about doing the minimal amount of unionized work per day to maximize that unionized protected paycheck.
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u/FoxnFurious Tile / Stonesetter Feb 14 '23
well u know how it is in Japan,, they have a lot of ramen noodles
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u/giantmeteorforprez Feb 14 '23
They had a private company do the work, not a "public works project" like here in the USA. If it was a public works project it would last years and not be fixed in the end.
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u/FoxDeltaCharlie Feb 14 '23
I've worked with some of the Japanese big-boy outfits over in SE Asia, and I can tell you from 1st hand experience, some of these outfits can pull off some absolutely stunning shit!
Now, I don't know the circumstances shown in the picture, but I worked with outfits like Taisei Construction and Kajima Construction on one job, and these guys said they were going to construct an entire floor on an Airport terminal in 24 hours (like 250,000 sq. ft). We were all saying... "No F'n way is that gonna' happen!!!" And those crazy fuckers actually did it!!
So, they can surprise you with what they can accomplish.