Repair project supervision

DESPITE BEING USED TO FREQUENT MEDIA reports about the shoddy quality of some of the country's construction projects in recent decades, people are nonetheless very shocked about a problem with a Gansu highway that was recently exposed.

The news that one-seventh of the 235-kilometer highway that connects Tianshui and Dingxi in the northwestern province must be repaired challenges ordinary people's tolerance, especially coming so soon after the deadly Wenzhou train accident on July 23, which cast a shadow on the new high-speed railway network.

Requiring four years to build and up to 8.7 billion yuan ($1.36 billion), the Tianshui-Dingxi highway needed repair due to holes and cracks on its surfaces only three months after it was fully opened in late May.