By Bivash Mukherjee, IANS
Shanghai : In a rare sight in China’s financial capital Shanghai, a few hundred people opposed to plans to extend the maglev (magnetic levitation) train route demonstrated outside the city government in the heart of this city on a foggy afternoon.
Police acted quickly and bundled away the demonstrators in waiting police vans but not before they had taken the authorities by surprise.
The city government is in People’s Square next to the prestigious Grand Theatre and opposite the Shanghai Museum, close to the famed Nanjing Road that is flocked by tourists and visitors.
Reports of radiation effects from maglev have been making the rounds on the websites since last month but most of the sites have been blocked by the authorities. There have been unreported smaller protests last week in distant suburbs over the health hazards but few reports added the protests also had to do with relocation of the locals and property prices that may supposedly dip if the plans go through.
The current magnetic levitation train route covers a little over 30 km and connects the city’s international airport in Pudong to the subway. Trains on this route can attain a top of 420 km/hour. It is projected as the pride of the city – the only one in the world – and covers the distance in seven minutes flat which otherwise is a good 45-minute ride by road.
The city is trying to extend the maglev line to the domestic airport in Hongqiao. Shanghai is keen to get the maglev ready for the World Expo in 2010. Built with German assistance, it was inaugurated by the then German chancellor Gerhard Schroder in late 2003.
Shanghai also plans to connect the city with neighbouring Hangzhou (175km), which is often projected as the `Geneva of the East’. The current train ride takes a little over three hours. The maglev is expected to cut that down by an hour and a half.
A report in China Daily last week claimed that any proposed revisions to the plans would cost twice the original budget. It said that costs could jump from 200 million yuan ($27.5 million) to 500 million yuan for each kilometre of the extended line that would provide wider buffer zones between the residents and the maglev tracks.
The Xinhua news agency also reported last week the controversy was likely to continue following the release of an environmental assessment report. Xinhua reported in May last year that the project had been suspended, which was denied by the Shanghai government. But the local government added that an environmental study would be carried out.
The study suggested the maximum speed along the Shanghai section of the route would be limited to 200 km/h, which is substantially less than the 450 km/h planned for the remainder of the railway to Hangzhou. It said that the maglev would not affect water and air quality and insisted that noise pollution could be adequately controlled.
The China Daily report quoted an unnamed source as saying: “Experiments have shown that the electromagnetic radiation is minimal compared with what is emitted from electronics appliances in the home. But the noise is a problem.”
It said the Shanghai government is unlikely to abandon plans for the extended line, because 10 billion yuan has already been invested in the project.