Honghe Bridge takes precedence over Spring Festival

Construction continued throughout the Lunar New Year vacation as workers made up for time lost during a major typhoon last summer. Over the holiday, they completed pouring concrete for the first main bearing platform of the 9.65-km (6-mile) Honghe Bridge, Zhuhai Communication Group announced on Feb 24.

These extraordinary efforts are being made to finish Zhuhai's longest cable-stayed bridge by 2020. Already in place are 860 pile foundations, 61 bearing platforms, 47 pier bodies, and 145 prefabricated segmental beams.

Rendering of Honghe Bridge

A key project to link Zhuhai's East and West wings, the dual six-lane bridge is costing 4 billion-yuan ($613 million). The main body consists of two 500-m (1,600-ft) double-pylon double-plane cable-stayed spans across the Hongwan and Modaomen waterways.

The bridge project has a terminus at Hongwan Interchange in Nanping Town. It diverges into the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge link line and crosses both the Guangzhou-Macao Expressway and Second Hengqin Bridge. Running westward, the route passes through the reserved channel north of the planned Hongwan Port Area, spans Hongwan Waterway in the southwest, crosses proposed Mangzhou Wetland on Hengqin Island, and continues on to Modaomen Waterway in South Hezhou Reclamation Area. It connects with the Hezhou-Gaolan Port Expressway and proposed Jinhai Bridge via South Hezhou Interchange.

It will allow speeds of up to 100 kmph (62 mph).

At the same time, another significant east-west passage under construction is the Xianghai Bridge. The 20-km (6-mile) Xianghai Bridge project, also damaged in the typhoon, is another vital east-westward route north of Zhuhai Avenue. From Xiangzhou District, it connects with the Cuiping Road Zaobei Interchange, and passes through Zhongshan's Tanzhou Town and Zhuhai's Doumen and Jinwan districts to access major arteries such as the Guangzhou-Zhuhai West Line Expressway and Jiangmen-Zhuhai Expressway.

Workers forgo holiday to advance bridge [Photos courtesy Zhuhai Daily]