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A new airport is being built in Beijing, and is set to be the world's largest air hub. The construction of a major bridge of the project has just been finished after six months of work. Zheng Chunying takes a look.
Something's getting ready to bloom in Daxing. It's the new Beijing Daxing International Airport. A 600-meter bridge was just finished last week. 35 thousand tons of steel went into the two-level bridge. The technical challenges were extensive.
LI JIANHUA DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NEW AIRPORT PROJECT "We have to divide the bridge into 18 lifting units. 36 pieces of the bridge are to be hoisted. The hardest is avoiding structure deformation, especially where the pieces are to be joined."
The tolerance for every welded seam of the connected plates is a half millimeter. That's about the thickness of five sheets of newsprint. The bridge can handle a flow of over 70 million passengers a year. Arriving passengers get direct access to land transport.
DUAN XIANJUN DEPUTY CHIEF ENGINEER OF NEW AIRPORT PROJECT "The airport will seamlessly connect to an inter-city train and a major expressway, as well as the high-speed railway system."
The high-speed train has a maximum speed of over 300 kilometers an hour. And it runs just under an airport for the first time in the world. Shock absorbers are installed to keep things steady. Thousands of workers will be on the job till 2019, when Daxing International is scheduled to open. They say they are proud of being part of this ambitious project, what's being called the world's biggest airport.
Zheng Chunying, CGTN.