China bridge bridges immersed tunnel immersed tunnels artificial island

China’s new 24-kilometer, $6.7 billion, Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge

*Rendered view of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan link (image from www.cnbayarea.org.cn)*

China’s Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge is a massive infrastructure project, which recently broke the world record by paving about 22,600 square meters of asphalt in a single day.

The bridge is a Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao passage, which features eight traffic lanes, artificial islands, and an undersea tunnel over a length of 24 km, coming at a $6.7 billion budget.

It is also worth mentioning that this project sits just 32 km away from the world’s longest sea bridge, the 55-kilometer Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, which opened in 2018 and cost $20 billion.

Construction of the Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge started in 2017 and is expected to be completed in 2024.

The new bridge is expected to reduce travel time between Zhongshan and the Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport from the current 2 hours to just 20 minutes.

Finally, it is known that the last part of the project’s underwater tunnel was immersed on October 21, 2022.

Sources: edition.cnn.com, www.globaltimes.cn