China builds world's longest water diversion tunnel

Construction teams digging the world's longest water diversion tunnel completed their work Wednesday in northeast China's Liaoning Province, breaking a record held by Japan.

    The 85.3 kilometer long tunnel has a diameter of eight meters. It starts in Hengren County in east Liaoning and ends in Xinbin County in the west part of the province.

    The tunnel runs across 50 hills, 50 rivers and 29 fault lines on its path, according to Zou Guangqi, technical chief for construction of the tunnel.

    Construction began in September 2006. Zhou said it will take several more months for workers to seal the interior of the tunnel with concrete before it is put into service at the end of this year.

    Shi Huiyun, chief of the Liaoning Provincial Water Resources Bureau, said the tunnel will bring water from the Dahuofang Reservoir to more than 10 million people in seven industrial cities -- Shenyang, Fushun, Liaoyang, Anshan, Panjin, Yingkou and Dalian.

    The dregs produced in digging the tunnel were used for building roads and river embankment, to ensure minimum impact on the environment, said Zou.

    The entire projects cost 10.3 billion yuan (1.52 billion U.S. dollars), of which, 5.2 billion yuan was set aside for tunnel construction, he said.

    The previous world record holder was Japan's Seikan (Aomori-Hakodate) tunnel, which is 53.86 km long.