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World's tallest bridge: Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge takes title

World's tallest bridge: Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge takes title

BBC News16-04-2025

Would you be brave enough to travel across this bridge in China? It's called the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge and is found in southwest China's Guizhou Province.Construction of it is almost finished, with it set to open in June.It will be 625 meters (2,051 feet) above river level - 200m taller than the Eiffel Tower.That also makes it taller than the Millau Viaduct in France, which at 343 meters (1,125 feet) held the record for the tallest bridge until now.
The bridge is a steel truss suspension bridge with a total length of 2,890 metres (9,482 feet). Altogether, these trusses weigh about 22,000 tons, equivalent to three Eiffel Towers.It's taken 3 and a half years to build, with construction officially starting on 18 January 2022.
Guizhou province is a mountainous areas of China, which is 800 miles west of the city of Shenzhen.It's already home to many impressive structures and buildings. In fact, nearly half of the top 100 tallest bridges in the world are in Guizhou.However, this bridge hasn't just been built to look impressive, it will have important practical uses too.Currently, crossing this mountainous canyon takes around 1 hour driving around winding roads, but with the bridge in place it is expected to cut this journey time to around a minute! This will increase connectivity between cities, and help businesses with lower transportation costs.
China has a reputation for building massive bridges like this, and is on a nationwide push to improve infrastructure, especially in relatively underdeveloped mountainous areas like Guizhou. "At present, the overall progress of the bridge has reached 95%, and it is planned to be opened to traffic in the second half of 2025," Zhang Shenglin, chief engineer of Guizhou Highway Group, told the state-run newspaper China Daily."By then, this super project that spans the 'Earth crack' will be the world's first in both directions. It will become another landmark project to demonstrate China's infrastructure strength," Zhang added.

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World's tallest bridge: Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge takes title
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World's tallest bridge: Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge takes title

Would you be brave enough to travel across this bridge in China? It's called the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge and is found in southwest China's Guizhou of it is almost finished, with it set to open in will be 625 meters (2,051 feet) above river level - 200m taller than the Eiffel also makes it taller than the Millau Viaduct in France, which at 343 meters (1,125 feet) held the record for the tallest bridge until now. The bridge is a steel truss suspension bridge with a total length of 2,890 metres (9,482 feet). Altogether, these trusses weigh about 22,000 tons, equivalent to three Eiffel taken 3 and a half years to build, with construction officially starting on 18 January 2022. Guizhou province is a mountainous areas of China, which is 800 miles west of the city of already home to many impressive structures and buildings. In fact, nearly half of the top 100 tallest bridges in the world are in this bridge hasn't just been built to look impressive, it will have important practical uses crossing this mountainous canyon takes around 1 hour driving around winding roads, but with the bridge in place it is expected to cut this journey time to around a minute! This will increase connectivity between cities, and help businesses with lower transportation costs. China has a reputation for building massive bridges like this, and is on a nationwide push to improve infrastructure, especially in relatively underdeveloped mountainous areas like Guizhou. "At present, the overall progress of the bridge has reached 95%, and it is planned to be opened to traffic in the second half of 2025," Zhang Shenglin, chief engineer of Guizhou Highway Group, told the state-run newspaper China Daily."By then, this super project that spans the 'Earth crack' will be the world's first in both directions. It will become another landmark project to demonstrate China's infrastructure strength," Zhang added.

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