China builds world's longest bridge

China's vaulting economic ambition has set a new record with the construction of the world's longest bridge over water.

At 26.4 miles long, the Qingdao Haiwan Bridge would easily cross the English Channel and is almost three miles longer than the previous record-holder, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in the American state of Louisiana.
The vast structure links the centre of the booming port city of Qingdao in eastern China's Shandong Province with the suburb of Huangdao, spanning the wide blue waters of Jiaozhou Bay.
Built in just four years at a cost of £5.5 billion, the sheer scale of the bridge reveals the advances made by Chinese engineers in recent years.
No longer dependent on western expertise for such sophisticated projects, the six-lane road bridge is supported by more than 5,200 columns and was designed by the Shandong Gausu Group. When it opens to traffic later this year, the bridge is expected to carry over 30,000 cars a day and will cut the commute between the city of Qingdao and the sprawling suburb of Huangdao by between 20 and 30 minutes.
At least 10,000 workers toiled in two teams around the clock to build the bridge, which was constructed from opposite ends and connected in the middle in the last few days.

A staggering 450,000 tons of steel was used in its construction – enough for almost 65 Eiffel Towers – and 2.3 million cubic metres of concrete, equivalent to filling 3,800 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Chinese officials said that the bridge will be strong enough to withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake, typhoons or the impact of a 300,000 tonne vessel.

China is already home to seven of the world's 10 longest bridges, including the world's lengthiest, the 102 mile Danyang-Kunshan rail bridge, which runs over land and water near Shanghai.

And with Beijing pumping billions into boosting China's infrastructure, the Qingdao Haiwan Bridge will not be the world's longest sea bridge for very long.
In December 2009, work started on a 31 mile bridge that will link Zhuhai in southern Guangdong Province, China's manufacturing heartland, with the financial centre of Hong Kong. The £6.5 billion project is expected to be completed in 2016.

Not surprising~

taking over the world

Not surprising

Is what I'll say when thousands die after a disaster on the bridge.

[COLOR="green"]China already built the longest wall in the world.

:V[/COLOR]

[COLOR="green"]China already built the longest wall in the world.

:V[/COLOR]

I think it's called over compensating

Is what I'll say when thousands die after a disaster on the bridge.

This, sadly. I bet in one of those 5,200 columns there's a bamboo stick in place of the actual materials.

This, sadly. I bet in one of those 5,200 columns there's a bamboo stick in place of the actual materials.

They probably filled a few of them with dead bodies like in the Great Wall.

Why the hell would they build a 5 billion euro bridge that only saves 20-30 minutes o.o seems like a huge waste....

According to my dad, who is a chemical engineer, China really is quite developped in technology. The company my dad works for was doing a contract to buy equipment from a chinese supplier and they were at first afraid the equipment wouldn't have the quality they were expecting because of how cheap they were so they ran multiple tests on the equipment after buying. Finally they got to the conclusion that the equipment was really really good despite the price. Those equipments were cheap not because they don't pay workers much in China, it was because they are really advancing a lot in technology.

(too srs for funhouse)

If that bridge has the same quality of chinese products...
inb4 that pomegranate sinks in less than a month with that buttfucking high population.

China DOES have the technology, but like the soviets and most other world powers there's a huge lack of quality control..

But let them build. It'll give us some targets to hit when world war 3 breaks out.

I think the Dutch Afsluitdijk with 32km's splitting the old North Sea and South Sea and turning the complete South Sea into a lake is still more impressive...

China DOES have the technology, but like the soviets and most other world powers there's a huge lack of quality control..

But let them build. It'll give us some targets to hit when world war 3 breaks out.

Why there would be another war? I do hope I can live my life without going through a war, two is enough.

Plagerizer SEAmapler F3.

Why there would be another war? I do hope I can live my life without going through a war, two is enough.

China has been exponentially enlarging its military technology, getting into space, and showing increasing signs of agression. At least, it'll start a new space/arms race. Hopefully not a war, but we don't know. You know how China feels about the rest of asia.

[COLOR="green"]China already built the longest wall in the world.

:V[/COLOR]

I think it's called over compensating

D'ohohohohoh

If that bridge has the same quality of chinese products...
inb4 that pomegranate sinks in less than a month with that buttfucking high population.

Well, yeah, something that long able to withstand magnitude 8 earthquakes and typhoons? YEAH RIGHT THAT SH'IT'S ONE BIG TARGET. Eventually a strong wind will blow that thing and this will happen all over that thing and halt traffic entirely, or ultimately collapse the bridge eventually.

But let them build. It'll give us some targets to hit when world war 3 breaks out.

Please do not spread any sort of panic. Right now the world does not need another world war.

This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, one girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.

Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terribly stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost forever.

This is not her story.

Meh, people just can't live happily I guess

<3 D.N.A.

Why the hell would they build a 5 billion euro bridge that only saves 20-30 minutes o.o seems like a huge waste....

Not really, if you have billions of cheap workers like China has.

Not really, if you have billions of cheap workers like China has.

Billions -> 1.6 billion

Billions -> 1.6 billion

dont forget outsourced workers.