The Great Wall under the Sea merges! Shenzhen Zhongshan's "Hand in Hand" Success, Five Years of Passage | Guangdong | Underwater
On June 11, 2023 at 8:00 am, Guangdong Transportation Group announced that the final joint of the world's longest and widest steel shell concrete immersed tube tunnel - the Deep Middle Channel Submarine Tunnel - has been successfully launched. The penetration measurement results show that precise docking with the E24 pipe joint on the east side has been achieved. Five years after the start of the immersed steel shell test section of the underwater tunnel in April 2018, the "Great Wall of the Underwater" finally closed, and Shenzhen and Zhongshan achieved "hand in hand" at the bottom of the Lingdingyang Sea.
Shenzhen China Channel is an important part of the national highway network G2518 across the the Pearl River Estuary, and is also the core transportation hub project of the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area, with a total length of 24 kilometers, integrating "bridges, islands, tunnels, and underwater connectivity". Among them, the underwater tunnel is about 6.8 kilometers long, including about 5 kilometers of sunken pipe sections, consisting of 32 pipe joints and 1 final joint. Previously, 31 pipe joints were successively sunk and docked from the east and west sides to the middle of the Shenzhong Channel submarine tunnel. The overall floating installation of the last pipe joint and final joint began on June 8th, and the final joint launch and docking have been completed today. It took nearly 70 hours to achieve a breakthrough in critical control engineering, taking an important step towards the goal of opening the Shenzhong Channel to traffic in 2024.
![The Great Wall under the Sea merges! Shenzhen Zhongshan's "Hand in Hand" Success, Five Years of Passage | Guangdong | Underwater](https://a5qu.com/upload/images/8d879ad02668c1171ad7eb5f973478d8.jpg)
The final joint of the immersed tube tunnel in the deep middle channel is currently undergoing underwater docking
"The smooth closure of the Shenzhen China Channel subsea tunnel has accelerated the pace of building a 100 km 'golden inner bay' around the Pearl River estuary. At present, Guangdong Communications Group is working with all parties to fully promote the construction of the Shenzhen China Channel, to further improve the level of 'hard connectivity' and 'soft connectivity' in the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area, and to contribute to the transportation of Chinese path to modernization in Guangdong on the new journey," said Deng Xiaohua, secretary of the Party Committee and chairman of Guangdong Communications Group.
![The Great Wall under the Sea merges! Shenzhen Zhongshan's "Hand in Hand" Success, Five Years of Passage | Guangdong | Underwater](https://a5qu.com/upload/images/d6946e1c73fcbc3679d362884f8808c7.jpg)