What lies beneath: expert surveyors find two ‘anomalies’ in Tuam site scan
THE engineering firm that carried out tests at the site of the Tuam Home this week said it would recommend further investigations to reveal exactly what lies beneath the earth.
International experts TST Engineering scanned the site on Friday morning using high-tech equipment and has been analysing the data it collected over the last two days.
The results show there are two areas of interest at the site, which the engineers refer to as ‘anomalies’.
The first area of interest – plot A – is on the left of the field when you walk through the entrance gate. The data maps show there is a mound roughly 50cm below the surface of the earth. Within that mound, a boxlike object has been detected.
The results suggest the boxlike object is approximately 5m long and 5m wide.
It is not possible to tell for sure what this object is but indications suggest it is most likely man-made and not naturally occurring.
When pressed on what the object could be, engineers suggested it could be a tank or a filled in culvert – a half-pipe like structure that allows water to flow under another structure.
Engineers said the structure is denser than the surrounding anomaly, making it stand out on the survey.
The second area of interest – plot B – runs along the wall to the right of the site after you walk in the gate.
It is 12m long and roughly 3m or 4m wide, an area of 36-48sq.m. The data suggests there is something 70cm-90cm below the surface that covers whatever is beneath it.
Crucially, part of the survey – indicated in blue on the left – scanned the ground at a depth of between 1m and 1.2m, providing a glimpse of what lies beneath the covering material. That test confirms that there are items of higher density within this area of unknown anomaly.
The engineers said there are a number of possibilities as to what these items could be, including concrete, compacted soil, stone or bones. They said it was impossible to know for sure unless further investigations were carried out. The firm’s technical director, Simone Demurtas, said: ‘I’ve worked on areas where bodies were buried before. When you are carrying out this type of work, it is very difficult to say anything for sure. That is why I’m recommending further investigation at this site,’ he said. ‘You never know until you see with your own eyes; that’s why further studies should be done,’ he said.
Mr Demurtas said the next step would be to dig a number of ‘slit trenches’ – narrow trenches that give a cross-section view of what is underneath the soil – over the two areas of interest at the site.
He estimated that this would cost €1,500 to €2,000 per day and could be completed within two or three days. Any number of engineering firms could carry out the work and the total cost would most likely be less than €6,000.
TST Engineering uses a RIS-K2 radar machine which costs more than €100,000, to send different frequencies and electromagnetic waves underground up to a depth of 3m. As the frequencies travel down into the ground they react by sending back different signals, depending on what is beneath the soil. This process eventually creates a map of what is under the ground.