After construction for nine long years, world’s longest bridge has been opened for usage by Chinese President Xi jinping. The bridge stretches 55 km (34 miles) connecting Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macau. The construction cost is about $20 billion. The bridge was supposed to have opened in 2016 but got delayed due to safety concerns as all most 18 workers lost their lives working on the project according to an official report.
The leaders of Hong Kong, Macau and Mr.Xi attended the opening ceremony took place in Zhuha. Only limited bus service start operating from Wednesday. The specialty of the bridge is that it is designed to withstand earthquake and typhoons. The bridge is built using 400,000 tonnes which is sixty times the steel used to build Eiffel Tower.
A section in the middle of the bridge dips into the undersea through a 6.7 km tunnel that runs between two artificial island to facilitate the sailing of ships and about 30 kilometers of the bridges runs over the Pearl River delta sea. The remaining sections are land tunnels and link roads connecting the mainland to Hong Kong and Zhuhai. Through the new bridge the travel time has been cut down through 30 minutes which usually takes three to four hours to travel between Zhuhai and Hong Kong.
68 million people reside in the area currently. China already planned to create a greater Bay Area connecting Hong Kong, Macau and nine other cities. The bridge helped China to link with the world and a walk through the bridge is compared as having a walk in God’s hands. Special Permission must be obtained for crossing the bridge and all vehicles using the bridge is required to pay a toll. According to the resources, the bridge is not open for public transport, so private parties will make use of it. Additionally there is also no rail link. On an average, 9200 vehicles have been estimated to cross the bridge every day but later it was lowered as a new transport networks were built.
Though the bridge has been seen as a new way to boost economy, the public has difference of opinion. The bridge has been criticized as the bridge of death as 18 employees died working on the project and hundreds of employees have incurred injuries during construction according to BBC News Chinese.
Whats so special about the bridge is that special cameras are fixed which alerts the authorities when the drivers on the bridge yawn three times which is considered as a sign of sleepiness. Another specialty is that there are 48 hour HD surveillance camera to monitor potential terror attacks as per the South China Morning Post reports.
The project has not been well received by the Environmental groups as they fear the project could have made many irreversible damage to the sea and that many marine life could have been harmed, which also includes Chinese white dolphin as their no. has decreased to 47 from 148 in last ten years. Big White Elephant is the name given to the bridge by the critics as they feel that the bridge was built only for symbolic purpose and not for any economic gain.
Source 1: www.bbc.com
Source 2: www.cnbc.com
