Explosion, subterranean infrastructure and the elemental of earth in the contemporary city: The case of Kaohsiung, Taiwan

Abstract As Taiwan’s most important port city, Kaohsiung is well known for its petrochemical industrial cluster initially developed during the Japanese colonial period in the first half of the 20th century, followed by modernization and industrialization under authoritarian developmental technocrats in the context of cold war geopolitics between China and the United State of America. Over these decades, health and safety concerns were never a priority in development of the petrochemical industry. This chronic neglect led to the August 2014 explosions of 4 km of subterranean gas pipelines connecting the port and distant industrial zones, devastating the residential neighbourhoods that had been built above them. This paper aims to provide understanding why a leak from an underground industrial gas pipeline led to the deaths of 32 and the injury of a further 321, and how people reacted to this disaster. To comprehend the subterranean as a complex assemblage, we highlight three perspectives on the elemental of earth: (1) striated earth, (2) rhizomorphic earth, and (3) affective earth. First, earth can contribute its property to sustain urban metabolism and economic development by technocrats and engineers who scientifically investigate and map the underground via striating knowledge of the subterranean. Second, the elemental of earth can also become a hazardous place of rhizome-like multiplicities and connections for disasters to extend and mutate across multiple infrastructure sets. This rhizomorphic subterranean facilitates the spread of flammable propylene, which was the proximal cause of the 2014 explosion. Thirdly, after the disaster, previous public indifference to issues of subterranean safety was replaced by acute anger and criticism of industrial land use policy. The further affective imagination on the undergound as homeland helps the public to reconcile with their long-existed everyday unawareness of and alienation from the elemental of earth under their feet.