China to inaugurate a mega-bridge of 55 km and USD 20 bln to link Zhuhai to Hong Kong and Macao

Newsroom 22/10/2018 | 14:51

On October 24, Chinese president Xi Jinping will inaugurate one of China’s largest infrastructure projects, a 55 km and USD 20 billion long bridge linking the Chinese city of Zhuhai to Hong Kong and Macao.

Travel times will drop from over three hours to less than 40 minutes and China says the region will grow further. In Hong Kong, however, critics say there was no need for such an expensive bridge, and that the autonomy of the territory would be further eroded, just weeks after the first high-speed trains arrived in Hong Kong.

Construction began nine years ago and was to be finished in 2016, but there were many delays due to technical execution difficulties. The most complicated segment was the 6.7 km underground tunnel, which was made up of 33 huge items, each weighing 80,000 tons.

The tunnel was built between two artificial islands of 100,000 sqm each. The construction of the bridge used 400,000 tons of steel, almost five times more than the famous Golden Gate in San Francisco.

In addition, the bridge was built to withstand super-typhoons, strong winds and earthquakes up to 8 degrees on the Richter scale. The Chinese authorities say the construction of this bridge is part of a plan to establish a special metropolitan area – Greater Bay Area – which would incorporate 11 coastal cities with 68 million inhabitants, including Macao and Hong Kong.

Hong Kong also has critical voices saying that transport links were already good and that there was no need for such a mega-bridge to which Hong Kong contributed with USD 9 billion.