Traveling for 20 kilometers on a six-lane highway located 10 meters below a lake near Shanghai is now possible, with the country's largest underwater tunnel opened in China after four years of work costing several billion euros.
This work, realized in China, represents a real technological achievement as the country's longest underwater tunnel. The six-lane highway, which runs under Lake Taihu near Shanghai, is exactly 10,79 kilometers and is the longest underwater highway in the country. About 3 kilometers shorter but wider than the Royfast Tunnel in Norway…
Most importantly, the work was completed in a relatively short time of 20 years, thanks to the use of new techniques to waterproof the tunnel and the use of formidable devices mobilized to dig up to 4 meters under the lake. Wang Tongzhou, head of the enterprise in charge of the construction site, explained that the 16-metre-long excavator used for the tunnel is entirely Chinese-made, and that foreign-made tunneling devices will no longer be required to dig tunnels in the country.
On the other hand, a huge array of infrastructure works are currently underway in China. One of them is the country's longest tunnel under construction in the suburb of Beijing. Another is a gigantic underwater tunnel, even larger than the one in Shanghai, this time 123 kilometers under the Boha Sea. The cost of this work is estimated at 32 billion euros.
Source: China International Radio
Be the first to comment