The infrastructure ministry said Tuesday it will expand its probe into data management for piling work to the entire industry, as fears of manipulation involving building foundation piles continue to grow.

The move follows last Friday's announcement by Asahi Kasei Construction Materials Corp. that it manipulated piling data for at least 266 projects over the past decade, while major piling work contractor Japan Pile Corp. admitted it was guilty of similar data falsification in at least six of the projects it has handled over the past five years.

Infrastructure minister Keiichi Ishii said he will instruct the Concrete Pile Installation Technology Association, an industry body comprising 41 firms, including Japan Pile and Asahi Kasei Construction Materials, to report by Thursday on the status of the member firms' investigations into possible falsification of piling data.