An unparalleled engineering feat, a massive steel bridge now links China with Macau and Hong Kong. Opened recently, the world’s longest sea crossing bridge, more than 55 kilometres of road and tunnel, is part of China’s strategic blueprint for a Greater Bay Area around its throbbing economic hub of Pearl River Delta, modeled on other global economic dynamos like San Francisco Bay and Tokyo Bay. From end to end, including its two link roads, the bridge is about 20 times the length of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. The Y-shaped steel span, which linking the three cities, incorporates the latest engineering technology and design. The steel structures can withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake, a super typhoon or a strike by a cargo vessel weighing 300,000 tons. The artificial islands constructed at the ends of the sea tunnel are reinforced by 120 giant steel cylinders, each 73.8ft in diameter and 180ft high, equivalent to the height of an 18-storey building. Each cylinder weighs 550 tons, about the same as the world’s largest passenger jet, the Airbus A380.
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