China’s national news is reporting that the country has completed its first railway tunnel that runs underwater. The Shiziyang Tunnel was completed on Saturday12 March in the Guangdong Province, south China.
The Shiziyang Tunnel crosses under the Pearl River estuary and is almost 11km long. It is thought that trains will be able to travel at up to 350km per hour.
The tunnel is a key part of a 140km high-speed rail link that connects Guangzhou with Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The rail lines will be opened in sections between 2011 and 2016.
Construction of the Shiziyang Tunnel started in 2007 and the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong express rail link is scheduled to be in operation in 2012. This new high speed line means that travel times between Guangzhou and Hong Kong to 40 minutes from the current 2 hours.
The express line is also expected to join with the country’s express railway network and take passengers only eight hours to get from Hong Kong to Beijing.
