According to local sources, the prospectings, which require the drilling of eight holes into the riverbed of the Yangtze near Dashengguan, upstream the first bridge on the river -- the Nanjing Yangtze Highway-Railway Bridge, will provide useful data to the designing of the third bridge.

The projected third bridge is included into Nanjing City's overall plan, under which there will be six thoroughfares connecting both banks of the Yangtze in Nanjing City.

The new bridge will form an important part of the national highway linking Shanghai to Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province. On completion, it will also join the Shanghai- Nanjing Expressway to the Nanjing-Hefei Expressway.

The new bridge will be cable-stayed and will cost about three billion yuan (US$362 million), said local sources.

There are now two bridges in service on the Yangtze at Nanjing. The first, the Nanjing Yangtze Highway-Railway Bridge, became operational in 1960 and was then a Guinness record holder for the lengths of both railway and highway. The second bridge, 11 km downstream the first, is a double-tower stayed-cable bridge that was opened to traffic in March this year.

(People's Daily 09/04/2001)