Who is to blame for the destruction of the Teremki metro station?

The closure of part of the blue metro line in the capital due to flooding of the tunnel caused an explosive effect in the media, social networks and corridors of power. Everyone was actively involved in resolving the problem: the Prime Minister gave instructions, the Deputy Prime Minister held a meeting, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs emphasized the importance, and the city prosecutor's office began a preliminary investigation. However, in this situation, it is important not to look for simple solutions and those to blame, but to understand the reasons for making an unusual decision - suspending the metro.

This material is based on information obtained during communication with the former director of the Kievmetroproekt Institute Viktor Yanikin, the chief engineer of the Kiev Metro KP Viktor Vygivsky and colleagues of the former general director of Kievmetrostroy Vladimir Petrenko.

Tunnel through geological eras

Cracks on the tunnel surface could arise due to a number of subjective and objective factors. The first presumably be attributed to the poor quality work of the metro builders during the construction of the line, that is, non-compliance with technology, the use of low-quality materials, etc., on the one hand, and on the other hand, shortcomings in operation on the part of the Kiev Metro. But in this case, similar phenomena should have appeared on other metro lines, but over the 63 years of operation of the metro in Kiev, fortunately, there were no accidents, except for minor incidents, and it was stopped only twice: for two days in 2014 in the time of Euromaidan at the direction of Regional Vladimir Makeenko (head of the Kyiv City State Administration) and for two months in 2020 due to quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic.

Metro construction specialists name the reasons for the appearance of cracks in the tunnel rim, which led to the metro stop, but they do not boil down to someone’s negligence or mistakes during construction and operation. Everything is much more complicated.

The stretch between the Lybidskaya and Demeevskaya stations is perhaps the most difficult in terms of construction and operation conditions - it passes through the water-saturated soils of the Lybid riverbed. Moreover, the tunnel rises from a deep level at Lybidskaya to a shallow level at Demeevskaya. Here it crosses the border between hard clay and soft sandy soils, that is, abruptly, at a distance of 250 meters, the 180-ton train jumps from a hard support to a soft one. It is at this place of the tunnel frame that the heaviest loads fall, and it is here that the fatal cracks appeared.

Did the designers understand this danger? Yes, that’s why the diameter of the tunnel (and the thickness of the reinforced concrete tubing) was increased from 5100 to 5400 mm, and they also did “siliconization,” that is, chemical strengthening of external soils (although the latter does not prevent water seepage). Unfortunately, these measures did not provide complete protection and the first cracks in the frame appeared three months after the tunnel was put into operation - in March 2011. The contractor, Kievmetrostroy, patched these cracks, and the tunnel... successfully stood for 13 years, until the end of November this year, when new cracks appeared and sand began to be released.

The operators sounded the alarm bell and requested conclusions from the specialized institution - the State Enterprise “State Research Institute of Building Structures”, which summed up: “Damage in the frame is typical for a situation when the stress-strain state changes, that is, decompaction or destruction of the soil in the tunnel space .” . And further: “...the technical condition of the rim of the distillation tunnel along the first track between the Demeevskaya - Lybidskaya stations of the Obolonsko-Teremkovskaya metro line is classified as emergency (category “4”). Accordingly, the verdict: “According to the requirements of the current standards, the operation of the 1st gauge in this section must be suspended .”

Taking this conclusion into account, the Standing Commission on Technogenic Safety and Emergency Situations issued a resolution to stop part of the blue line.

Anthropogenic factors

For the most part they are financial and economic. The 2008 crisis led to the fact that from the end of 2008 to May 2010, all work on the blue line was stopped, the government stopped funding, and Kievmetrostroy closed the Goloseevskaya station at its own expense in order to save it until better times. And in order to strengthen the external soils at the problematic stage, expensive chemicals were needed, for which there was no money. It was also possible to purchase imported under-rail supports, but only for the critical section 250 meters long, 1000 pieces were needed at 500 euros each, that is, half a million euros, which, of course, were not found either.

Throughout this time, the Kiev Metro has not been in the best financial position. So, in 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic, due to a reduction in passenger traffic and a two-month shutdown, the cost of transporting one passenger increased to 23 UAH (!) with a fare of 8 UAH. Our government played a cruel joke not only with the nurses of Kiev hospitals, but also with the metro track service, when during quarantine it closed entry into Kiev for residents of the surrounding areas - 70% of workers came to work at night in the metro from the suburbs, so they then quit en masse, and the work of this service was paralyzed, and this is, in particular, control over the condition of the tunnels.

For reference: in pre-coronavirus times, 0.5 million people came

Kyiv underground and above ground

There are about 700 surface water bodies in Kiev And under the city there is an invisible but real underground sea of ​​rivers, lakes, quicksand, springs, streams... Because of this saturation of underground Kyiv with water, tens of kilometers of underground tunnels run under the surface, through which water constantly flows. The Kiev specialized department of underground landslide prevention works has on its balance sheet 77.5 km of drainage adit systems, 10 km of shallow drainage, which none of the Kiev residents, except diggers, have ever seen, and another 28 km of trays and open drains. Therefore, we can say that Kyiv is an archipelago city.

Now imagine that thousands of concrete piles are driven into this invisible conglomerate of water, sand and clay, kilometers of retaining walls are cut in, and hundreds of thousands of tons of foundations are poured. If you look at the map, along the route of the emergency section of the metro there are continuous structures and construction sites, starting with the famous Ocean Plaza shopping center above the Lybidskaya station. Driving the Lybid River into a concrete channel does not mean solving the problem of water drainage, since its entire channel is saturated with springs and their water cannot get . Therefore, any intervention in this system with piles and foundations only leads to a rise in the groundwater level, which, in my opinion, led to the weakening of the soil under the tunnel and its further destruction. And therefore, the decisive anthropogenic factor that led to the closure of part of the blue branch has the general name “Kiev developer”.

Were there “severe consequences”?

Unfortunately, the discourse around the problem of closing the metro in the capital immediately acquired a political overtones. It is not difficult to understand the reasons for such picky attention from the central government: 200 thousand residents of Teremki, who suddenly found themselves without a convenient and reliable connection to the center and other areas of the city, are a potential electorate. Here the approaches of state and city authorities turned out to be quite different. At a meeting of the State Commission for Emergency Situations, they decided to use the frozen metro stations as bomb shelters , something even a child could think of.

Instead, the Kyiv City State Administration acted on a practical level - on December 8, 55 buses and 15 trolleybuses were already running between the Teremki and Lybidskaya stations, and on the first working day their number increased even more. And, judging by the crowd on Lybidskaya (the photo went viral on social networks), this is still a challenge for the local authorities.

The city prosecutor's office on its Facebook page (not on the official website) reported that “a pre-trial investigation has been launched into the fact of official negligence, which caused serious consequences (Part 2 of Article 367 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).”

It is worth explaining here that this article applies specifically to officials who are entrusted with duties by a certain normative act, but the improper performance of duties other than official ones, for example, purely professional ones, cannot be considered as official negligence . That is, there are no complaints against the metro builders or metro workers; they can only be against the officials of the Kyiv Metro and the Kyiv City State Administration, who “allowed” cracks and water to leak into the tunnel. It is not clear what “severe consequences” took place if, as a result of stopping the movement of trains in the metro, there was no destruction or loss of life. Does the prosecutor’s office really believe that transferring passengers to buses and trolleybuses has “severe consequences”?

At the same time, it is obvious that the closure of part of the blue line put the people of Kiev and the city authorities in a difficult situation that requires revision and improvement of the entire road transport network of Kiev. What to do: let the flow of passengers go towards Svyatoshino, to the high-speed tram and the Akademgorodok station, or direct them along Vasilkovskaya and Goloseevsky Prospekt? The city authorities should answer these questions in the coming days, but this is a topic for a separate analysis.

Now, to my question whether it is realistic to restore metro traffic in six months, the chief engineer of the Kyiv Metro, Viktor Vygivsky, gave a clear answer: “We have set ourselves such a task.”