{"id":519733,"date":"2026-01-16T06:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T06:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/519733\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T06:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T06:30:18","slug":"authorities-say-heidelberg-sinkhole-preventable-as-works-resume-on-north-east-link-tunnel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/519733\/","title":{"rendered":"Authorities say Heidelberg sinkhole ‘preventable’ as works resume on North-East Link tunnel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victoria’s road building authority says “a test that should not have taken place” caused an 8-metre wide sink<\/a>hol<\/a>e <\/a>to appear on a community sporting oval in Melbourne’s north-east.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On January 6, the ground caved in at AJ Burkitt Oval in Banyule Flats Reserve in Heidelberg igniting community concern<\/a> about the North-East Link tunnel project that had been excavating an area near the oval when the sinkhole appeared.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Friday, the interim CEO of VIDA Roads, Paul Roth, told the media that internal investigations into the sinkhole had been completed, while Worksafe said it would continue monitoring the situation.<\/p>\n

“This is a very serious incident, and we’ve taken it very seriously,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We are exceptionally disappointed and share the community’s disappointment and frustration.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr Roth said the sinkhole had been “preventable” and that his government agency was “confident” it could resume using tunnel boring machines, or ‘TBMs’ in the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said the incident would not delay or add to the cost of the project, with tunnelling set to resume on Friday afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Paul<\/p>\n

Paul Roth says he is “exceptionally disappointed” that the sinkhole was created. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

Planned test should have been aborted<\/p>\n

Mr Roth said the investigation found the TBM had entered an area of geologically complex and fragmented ground.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This was not a surprise; we were aware of the conditions, we had excellent information about the conditions, and the TBM was operating as expected,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said the crew then “pushed past” this patch of complex earth as was “correct procedure”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The North-East Link project will resume tunnelling on Friday. (Supplied: North East Link)<\/p>\n

It was at this point that the crew carried out a planned “pressure test”, which reduced the pressure within the TBM so crews could enter the machine for maintenance purposes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Investigators found this test destabilised the ground and created the sinkhole.<\/p>\n

“For clarity, that test should not have taken place,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr Roth said.<\/p>\n

VIDA Road’s head of tunnelling design and construction, Paul Thomas, said the test had been planned to familiarise crews with the process before they crossed the challenging Yarra River.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It was always planned to do that test,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Thomas said the incident did not pose a safety risk to workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The oval is expected to reopen in March. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

New processes in place<\/p>\n

Mr Roth said the investigations had focused on tightening “controls and processes to make sure that such a decision and such an event would not take place again”.<\/p>\n

He said there were “multiple layers of assurance” within the massive tunnelling machines and, on the surface, there was a “complex range of technical devices that give us real-time monitoring and data”.<\/p>\n

There would also now be crews on the surface during tunnelling operations to identify any movement and create an exclusion zone if required.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Authorities say the sinkhole was entirely preventable. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

“Both the equipment, the processes, and the procedures were appropriate, and if not for the decision to carry out a scheduled pressure test, this event would not have taken place,” Mr Roth said.<\/p>\n

He said the government had worked with its construction partners and independent experts to create “the most robust measures” to make sure it would not happen again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Remediation underway<\/p>\n

Mr Roth said the government had begun restoring AJ Burkitt Oval for public use.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A 500-tonne “concrete plug” has been installed in the hole and, following further investigations, the area will be turfed over.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said these works were expected to be completed by March.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We know this is an impost to the community and we appreciate their patience,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victoria’s road building authority says “a test that should not have taken place” caused an 8-metre wide sinkhole…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":495018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[231458,4740,231457,231461,9886,50,222793,231459,219251,231460,231462],"class_list":{"0":"post-519733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-aj-burkitt-oval","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-banyule-flats-reserve","11":"tag-city-of-banyule","12":"tag-construction","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-north-east-link","15":"tag-north-east-link-tunnel","16":"tag-sinkhole","17":"tag-undergroun-tunnelling","18":"tag-vida-roads"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115903373458334626","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}