A PIECE of retaining wall at Mumianling Community in Luohu District is cracked and posed a danger to more than 500 residents living nearby over the rainy weekend, the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily reported.

    Eighteen households made of 44 residents from one of four buildings were relocated to a safe area Sunday night.

    The wall is about 14 meters long and 4.2 meters high and it is between four residential buildings and one basketball court in the community.

    Mumianling Community has many remaining infrastructure issues and potential safety risks as it is built on hills.

    Staff from the Dongxiao Sub-district Office, where the community is, found cracks on the retaining wall while patrolling the area Friday. The district and municipal offices set up a rescue team after receiving the report.

    Experts said that through a few days’ observation, they had found the drains were not working well after heavy rain. No rain water was discharged from the holes, but water was found leaking from the main body of the wall.

    According to Gao Feng, a deputy general manager from the Chinese Nonferrous Metal Survey and Design Institute of Changsha, the cracks from which water leaks indicates that “a large amount of water is staying in the main body of the wall.”

    Several departments from Luohu District placed heavy sandbags at the retaining wall to prevent the wall from collapsing.

    The No. 165 building at the community lies just on top of the retaining wall. The rescue team had also covered the open space in front of the building with plastic cloth to stop water from penetrating the wall.

    During an emergency meeting at night it was decided to evacuate the residents at greatest risk.

    According to Lu Yaoming, the Party chief of the Dongxiao Subdistrict Office, 171 households of 326 people were living in the four buildings and the No. 165 building was the nearest building to the retaining wall.

    A resident surnamed Huang said she had lived in the No. 165 building for over two years and was frightened when she received the notice that they had to evacuate.

    “I saw the evacuation notice posted downstairs and I could not sleep thinking about the cracking wall in front of the building,” said Huang.

    Lu said nine special rescue teams were dispatched to evacuate the residents. “We have already collected all the details of the tenants living at the No. 165 building in order to find them a place to rent,” said Lu.

    Convenience stalls were set up near the scene to offer rental and legal consultation services for residents. The government also strengthened 24-hour real-time surveillance around the wall.

    Gao said that the retaining wall was built in the 1990s and many wires and pipes were embedded under the ground between the wall and the No. 165 building.

    Cracks 2 to 5 centimeters wide were found on the wall and the wall had also been distorted. Water from heavy rains and leaking underground pipes penetrated the wall, making it vulnerable to collapse.

    “What we are afraid of most at the moment is a rainstorm,” said Gao. The collapse of the wall will threaten more than 500 people’s lives, according to Gao.

    (Zhang Qian)