The final piece of a 6,845-metre-long undersea tunnel – part of an ambitious plan to improve connections between Shenzhen and Zhongshan – was put into place last week according to Chinese broadcaster CGTN.
The tunnel is one of the longest of its kind in the world and forms an integral section of the 24-kilometre Shenzhen-Zhongshan cross-sea link project, which also consists of new roads and bridges.
The bridge sections of the link, which extend for 17.2 kilometres, have already been finished.
Road development and other installation works need to be completed before the project is ready to open to traffic by 2024.
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When finished, the link will allow people to travel between Shenzhen and Zhongshan in around 30 minutes, down from 90 minutes before.
Construction of the tunnel section has been technically challenging, involving 32 prefabricated concrete tubes, each 165 metres long and weighing 80,000 tonnes.
The tubes were each transported and manipulated into place by a specially built vessel, the Yihangjinan-1 – currently the world’s largest and most advanced ship for undersea tube transportation and installation.
