Xiongan New Area work back on fast track as epidemic subsides
Print Edition
In the foundation pit roughly the width of a soccer field, excavators are digging and cranes are loading in rebars.
The pit, which stretches several kilometers, is an underground project to lay pipelines and water, power and gas infrastructure in Xiongan, a green city featuring innovative development in north China鈥檚 Hebei Province.
As the COVID-19 epidemic eases and work and production gradually resumes in China, the construction of Xiongan New Area has also gained steam.
On April 1, 2017, China announced plans to establish Xiongan, located about 100 kilometers southwest of Beijing, with the aim of building the area 鈥 spanning Rongcheng, Anxin and Xiongxian counties 鈥 into a national model of high-quality development and a new engine for the modern economic system.
Wearing a helmet and a mask, Chen Jie was busy installing rebars together with hundreds of his co-workers in the foundation pit in the Rongdong area, Rongcheng County.
Stranded by the epidemic in his hometown in neighboring Henan Province during the prolonged Chinese New Year holiday, Chen put himself in self-isolation for 14 days before returning to his post in Xiongan on February 12.
鈥淲hile sheltering at home, I reported my body temperature daily. After returning to work, I stayed in the 鈥榶ellow zone鈥 for another 14 days,鈥 he said.
To prevent cross-infection, the local administration has divided the living and working areas of key construction projects into colored zones to slot in workers according to their infection risks.
Workers returning by means of public transport were put in the red zone and those coming back by private cars or charter buses in the yellow zone, both for two weeks, according to Gao Baozhuan, a project manager of China Construction Eighth Engineering Division Corp, the Rongdong project constructor.
Local workers and those who did not go home for the holiday were assigned to the green zone, and the red and yellow zones would turn green if no infection case was spotted in 14 days, Gao said.
To date, Xiongan New Area, home to 1.2 million residents, has reported no confirmed or suspected cases of the novel coronavirus disease.
As of Monday, more than 58,000 workers had returned to their posts at Xiongan, with the construction of 78 projects and the operation of over 1,000 companies resuming.
According to Gao, the Rongdong underground project will not only have pipelines but also a logistic passageway, allowing trucks to traverse the urban area in the daytime. A robot will be used for automatic pipeline inspections.
City of the future
Often billed as China鈥檚 鈥渃ity of the future,鈥 Xiongan has been designed to become a zone for innovation, a digital city synchronized with a brick-and-mortar one, and a livable and business-friendly area.
As per plans, Xiongan will basically develop into a modern city that is green, intelligent and livable, with relatively strong competitiveness and harmonious human-environment interaction by 2035.
More than 1,000 Chinese and foreign experts and 2,500 specialists joined in the planning over the past three years before construction began.
Rongdong, a 13-square-kilometer area that is expected to be home to 170,000 people, is within the 38-square-km start-up area of Xiongan.
According to a development plan approved last year, the start-up area will be part of the Xiongan city proper, which will cover 198 square km. Designed for taking over Beijing鈥檚 functions nonessential to its role as the national capital, the city proper will be a new home for Beijing鈥檚 colleges, hospitals, business headquarters, and financial and public institutions.
At the construction site of a high school, concrete has been poured on the second floor of the building. The school will be a branch of Beijing No. 4 High School, a prestigious school.
鈥淲hile ensuring workers鈥 safety amid the epidemic, we have resumed orderly construction,鈥 said Chen Hao, manager of the project with the Beijing Urban Construction Group, adding that the campus will be ready by September 2021 for the new semester.
In Zangang Township, some 10km from the county seat of Xiongxian, dozens of piling machines and cranes roar at the construction site of the Xiongan high-speed railway station, the first major transport project of the area.
Now that the rail-bearing floor has been finished, the bridge and the steel roof of the station house will soon be lifted, said Miao Shengguo, a Party official with the station project from the China Railway No. 12 Engineering Group.
Miao said some 3,300 workers had returned to their posts, most of whom arrived in charter buses or private cars.
鈥淭he epidemic has affected our progress, but we are racing against the clock to catch up.鈥
Travel time from Beijing to Xiongan by high-speed train will be shortened to only 30 minutes when the station is operational by the end of this year as planned.
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