China builds high-speed rail in 'Bermuda Triangle of Asia'
Pingtan Strait Railroad Bridge spans across rough sea off south-east China The area is a 'no-go zone' for bridge builders due to high winds and huge waves Workers are using a team of monster bridge-building machines for the project The bridge is a part of a £2.6 million railway and set to be complete in 2019 Chinese workers are constructing an impressive railroad bridge in an area that has been considered a 'no-go zone' for bridge builders.
From article, (Last November, Chinese state media announced that they successfully laid the foundation of Pingtan bridge - after drilling 1,895 pillars into the ocean.
Pingtan bridge is a part of the £2.6 million Fuping Railway Line, a new member of China's fast-growing railway network that covers 88 kilometres (54 miles).
In the past 20 years, the length of China's railway lines has nearly doubled, growing from 66,000 kilometres (41,000 miles) to 127,000 kilometres (78 miles).
China is also the country with the most railway bridges in the world.
The country's workers have built over 60,000 railway bridges.
The mammoth Pingtan Strait Railroad Bridge connects Pingtan Island and its nearby islets to the mainland of Fujian Province.
The marvelous engineer feat is a project of superlatives.
According to stats provided by Chinese state media, the two-level structure is a whopping 11 kilometres long (6.8 miles) - 45 times longer than the Tower Bridge in London, or six times longer than the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.
To build the entire bridge, workers will need to use 300,000 tonnes of steel and 2,660,000 cement - enough for building eight Burj Khalifa towers in Dubai, the world's tallest skyscraper.
Set to have an eight-lane highway on the top and a high-speed railway at the bottom, the two-level structure would be the first railroad bridge in China built over the sea and is designed to support bullet trains travelling as fast as 200/kmh (124/mph).
The construction conditions, however, are unprecedentedly challenging. The Pingtan strait, a part of Taiwan Strait, is infamous for its high winds. For more than 300 days a year, strong gusts blowing as quickly as 13.8 metres per second (30 miles per hour) create towering waves as tall as 10 storeys.
The underwater drilling machines will have to withstand immense pressure up to 87 tonnes created by the ocean currents.
Fan Lilong, the chief engineer of the bridge, told China Central Television Station that Pingtan bridge was the most challenging project he had undertaken in his 20 years of experience.
Mr Fan said: 'Pingtan Strait Railroad Bridge is the most difficult railroad bridge that is being built in the entire world.')
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