The world's first rail-cum-road bridge with a single span measuring over one km between China's eastern Nantong city and Shanghai is expected to be made operational by the middle of this year, officials said.
The 11,072-metre long cable-stayed Shanghai-Nantong Yangtze River Bridge, which cuts travel time between the two cities to one hour, will emerge as a civil engineering icon.
Jiangsu province's Nantong, a prefecture-level city, is located about 120 km from Shanghai. It is a thriving city with thousands of years of history and modern infrastructure.
"This mega bridge project began in November 2013, and civil work started on March 1, 2014. The height of its tallest column is 325 metres and nearly 4,80,000 tonne of steel and 2,300,000 cubic meter concrete has been used in it," a senior official said.
The double-use bridge will have a six-lane expressway on the upper deck and four railway tracks on the lower deck.
Huge volume of construction was required so that the bridge can withstand violent typhoons, high-intensity earthquakes and impacts from collision of a heavy ship, he said.
The bridge will have a special place in the hearts of the Chinese people as it was closed in September last year ahead of the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic of China (PRC) on October 1.
"We had a grand ceremony in Beijing on October 1, it being the National Day and marking 70th anniversary of the PRC. The Shanghai-Nantong bridge was closed in September, ahead of the anniversary day," a senior official of China Daily told PTI.
"Closure of a bridge means the two sides connecting. In China, we call it 'He Long', It is like two dragons meeting each other," the official said.
The state-run English daily in partnership with the Jiangsu local government recently organised a visit to the province for 15 journalists from several countries, who also visited the under-construction bridge, the second across the mighty Yangtze river.
"The new bridge connecting Nantong and Suzhou is expected to be finished on March 20, 2020 and begin operating on July 1" the China Daily official said, quoting local administration officials.
Locals also refer to the new bridge as HuTong Bridge, Hu and Tong being Chinese (Pinyin) names for Shanghai and Nantong respectively.
Nantong is to the north of Suzhou in Jiangsu, and Shanghai is located to the east of Suzhou. There is already a Suzhou-Nantong bridge, and this is the second bridge across Yangtze River, and for some reason, people living in Nantong want to name it as 'Nantong-Shanghai' bridge rather than Nantong-Suzhou bridge, the official said.
The official said that the bridge will cut the travel time between the two cities from two hours by road at present to one.
Sharing the challenges faced by the construction team, the official said, "There were two ways to build the main tower, one is pile foundation, the other is large caisson construction. Due to high-speed winds and water reason, they choose the second one, more complicated, but more safe option".
Nantong administration has also planned the second airport for the city. The first airport Nantong Xingdong international airport was built in 1993, the official said.
"Nantong is going to emerge as the veritable northern gateway to Shanghai, with the new bridge and the airport," a senior official of Nantong administration said.
"We want our Nantong to be a world-class city. Work going on expanding the urban infrastructure and a new bridge being built to connect faster to Shanghai. A new airport will also come up and people can visit Shanghai by flying to Nantong directly," he added.
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