China sets new world record by constructing 43-km long structure
China sets new world record by constructing 43-km long structure
China has just set a new world record.
Stretching across the wide blue waters of Jiaozhou bay, the vast 43-km bridge connects the booming Northern port city of Qingdao with an airport built on a nearby island and the industrial suburb of Huangdao.
The bridge is 110-feet wide and has six lanes and cuts travel time by 30 minutes
The first motorists to roll onto the bridge's six-lane, 110-feet-wide highway halved their journey time to the other side of the bay to just 30 minutes.
While the bridge will eventually charge cars 50 yuan (Rs 345), for a month the drive will be free.
While traffic on the bridge was sparse on its opening, city officials predicted that 30,000 cars a day would eventually cross it each day.
"It is a magnificent and a very advanced bridge," said Li Qun, the local Communist party secretary, at the
opening ceremony. "It is another stepping stone in the city's smooth and rapid development".
Built in just four years at a cost the bridge stands on 5,200 pillars and was entirely designed by Chinese engineers at the Shandong Gausu Group.
"We have learned a lot of new techniques and skills during the construction," said Shao Xinpeng, the bridge's chief engineer.
At least 10,000 workers toiled in two teams around the clock to build the bridge, working from opposite sides of the bay and linking the two ends together in the middle.
A staggering 4,50,000 tonne of steel was used in the construction, enough for almost 65 Eiffel Towers, and 2.3 million cubic metres of concrete.
The bridge has eclipsed the current Guinness World Record-holder, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana, by at least two-and-a-half miles.
However, it will be eclipsed in 2016 by another Chinese bridge, which is being built to link Hong Kong with Macao and Guangdong.
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