A water diversion tunnel under construction in northeast China is set to become the world's longest manmade tunnel, and is currently less than four kilometers short of the record.

 

53.13 km of tunnel has been finished so far and will soon break the record held by Switzerland's 57-km Gotthard Base Tunnel, according to project managers.

 

The tunnel -- with a diameter of eight meters and running through 50 hills, 50 river valleys and 29 geographic faults -- will be 85.3 km long on completion in 2008.

 

Jiao Yong, Vice Minister of Water Resources, said in Liaoning on Tuesday that the tunnel and diversion pipelines with a total length of 231 km will bring water from the Dahuofang Reservoir in the east of Liaoning to 10 million people in six industrial cities in the province's central region.

 

The second-phase of construction, which includes the building of closed pipelines to divert water from the trunk line into the respective cities, was officially started on Tuesday.

 

With a per-capita water resource of less than 700 cubic meters, the province, known as one of the cradles of China's heavy industry, is also one of China's thirstiest areas.

 

The diversion project would use the geographical vertical tilt of 36 meters to solve the water shortage, and help to revive the province's industrial growth, said Xu Weiguo, vice governor of Liaoning.

 

The whole project will be built at an estimated cost of 10.3 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion), of which 5.2 billion yuan (US$650 million) has been allocated to tunnel construction.

 

(Xinhua News Agency September 20, 2006)