China opens first undersea tunnel
Source: Xinhua |
April 27, 2010, Tuesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
THE first undersea tunnel built on the Chinese mainland opened to traffic in the southeastern province of Fujian yesterday.
The highway tunnel joins Xiamen Island, one of the first special economic zones opened in the early 1980s, to Xiang'an District to its north under the Xiamen municipal jurisdiction.
The tunnel, designed for an average driving speed of 80 kilometer per hour, is expected to cut the travel time between the two areas to nine minutes from one hour.
The 8.7-kilometer tunnel - 6 kilometers of which is under the sea with a maximum depth of 70 meters - cost a total of 3.2 billion yuan (US$468 million) and took four years and eight months to build.
It boasts the world's largest tunnel cross-section with a maximum area of 170 square meters. It consists of three tubes (17.5 meters wide and 13.5 meters high) with one for maintenance and emergency use and the other two each containing a three-lane highway.
The completion of the tunnel, designed and constructed by Chinese experts and companies, was a result of extremely tough work caused by loosening soil and a permeable sand layer under the water, said Zeng Chao, vice director of the Xiang'an tunnel project.
The project provided valuable experience for building more undersea tunnels, he said.
Fujian Province will see two other tunnels built in the near future, and a tunnel in the Jiaozhou Bay in east China's coastal Shandong Province is under construction, said Zeng.
Zeng said academic circles and industry insiders have called for the building of a undersea tunnel linking Fujian and Taiwan, noting the Xiang'an tunnel, located in the Taiwan Strait, can serve as a reference.
Ministry of Railways' chief engineer He Huawu said last week that the ever-closer economic and trade ties between the mainland and Taiwan made the building of a cross-Strait tunnel urgently needed.
Plans for building cross-Strait undersea tunnels linking Chinese mainland and Taiwan Island had been under discussion for several years, according to Zeng.
He also said it would take years to conduct a feasibility study and other preparations before the project, which would cover more than 100km, could be started.
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