On October 23, a new 55-kilometer bridge was solemnly opened in China, connecting three cities at once - Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai. Its construction took 9 years, and the total budget of the project amounted to $ 20 billion.
Honored guests at the ceremony
The main guest at the ceremony was President Xi Jinping. The event was held on the territory of the customs control terminal, built on an artificial island near Zhuhai.
In addition to Xi Jinping, the vice-premiers of the PRC, the heads of the Macau and Hong Kong administrations, as well as other senior officials attended. As it turned out, the bridge should have been completely ready two years ago, but due to delays in construction, it was only possible to open it today.
Project Importance
The bridge has become a key element of China’s plan to link large cities in this region of the country. It has helped bring closer 11 cities, including Macau and Hong Kong, with a total population of about 68 million. Thanks to the bridge, the trip time between these cities will be reduced from three hours to 30 minutes.
China's next construction record
Given the overall length of the structure, the Chinese media immediately dubbed the new project the "largest bridge in the world." Indeed, despite the fact that the length of the main surface section of the bridge is slightly less than 30 kilometers, with all the tunnels, junctions and side branches, the length of the object is 55 km.
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One of the main highlights of the bridge was the 7-kilometer automobile tunnel, which was made underwater so as not to interfere with busy shipping on the Pearl River. To build it, the workers had to create two artificial islands.
In fact, the Hong Kong-Macau-Zhuhai bridge is far from the largest in the world. It is more than 100 kilometers shorter than the Danyang-Kunshan bridge, which, incidentally, is also built in China.
The pinnacle of architectural art
The bridge is built in such a way that it can easily withstand earthquakes with a force of up to 8 points, impacts of heavy cargo ships and even super typhoons. In September, he had already successfully completed a strength test and withstood the strongest typhoon Manghut in China over the past few decades.
400 thousand tons of steel was spent on the construction - more than 4 times more than the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. In addition, two artificial islands were created in relatively shallow waters, each of them covering an area of about 100 thousand square meters. Between the islands, the bridge passes into an underwater tunnel with a length of almost 7 kilometers.
However, during the construction, there were some unforeseen incidents. Seven workers died at a construction site, another 300 received injuries of varying severity. During the court proceedings, it was found that due to a lack of labor, builders worked beyond the norm. In this regard, at the beginning of this year, by a court decision, several subcontractors were fined large amounts.
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The reaction of environmentalists
Unfortunately, the creation of such a huge architectural and infrastructure miracle was not without debate and criticism.
As it turned out, the Pearl River Delta is home to many aquatic animals, including the endangered white dolphin. They already suffered from intensive land reclamation in Hong Kong and other cities located in the immediate vicinity of the river, and the construction and operation of the bridge can be literally fatal for them.
In response to environmental concerns associated with the new bridge, the Hong Kong government has created additional marine parks to protect dolphins and other aquatic life. But some experts argue that this is unlikely to compensate for the damage already done by large-scale construction.
