I’ve lived in Hangzhou, China for some time, so this piece of news concerns me. It is reported that Hangzhou’s subway tunnel which is under construction, caved in, killing four and leaving 17 missing.

The construction site is in an area called Xiang Hu, where the city’s many luxury residential projects are based. I’ve once visited the area. It has replicated, among others, a Venice city with canals and bridges, occupying a huge area. It looked real and I found myself in awe of China’s capacity to copy and paste.

The Xiang Hu area is green, and sparsely populated – largely the rich who can afford a residential place like Venice. Doubts were raised when the city’s subway line is set to extend to this area rather than the much more densely populated Xiao Shan area. People think that it is in the interest of property developers that the subway line is thus designed.

Now the accident has happened, the public’s doubts over the collusion between the government and the business are raised again.

The Hangzhou subway construction work started in March last year and scheduled to complete the first and second phases of work in 2010.