By Zhu Huibin, Zhu Beining and Peng Junjun

rom late night 20 August to dawn 21 August, good news came from China-Russia east natural gas pipeline south section project which was invested by Pipe China: ‘Changtong’ tunnel boring machine which takes the important task of cross Yangtze River construction completed its first important crossing since the start of construction. It crossed the Yangtze River north bank dam at 24 m underground in Nantong Haimen district. It moved from underground to below the bottom of the Yangtze River. A real ‘Yangtze River bottom marathon’ was started. In the future it is expected to break the world record of single tunnel boring machine continuous boring length.

China-Russia east natural gas pipeline project is one part of China’s oil and gas four major strategic channels. The project is 5111 km long within China. It starts from Heihe of Heilongjiang province in the north, ends at Baihe, Shanghai in the south. It is divided into three sections: north, middle and south sections. After 6 years of construction, gas has been supplied in north and middle sections. The south section is in intensive construction. The tunnel across the Yangtze River is the throat of the south section.

Secretary of CPC Committee of the project Sun Jian said that ‘Changtong’ starts from launching shaft in north bank to receiving shaft in south bank. The total length is 10.226 km. 7500 m is under the Yangtze River. The two data set the foundation of ‘the longest tunnel in ten thousand li Yangtze River’.

‘Changtong’ is 146 m long and 7 m wide. It weighs 1252 tons. It is a special engineering machine for tunnel boring. It is like a giant ‘steel earthworm’. It has high degree of automation, fast construction speed, can drill a shaft at one time. It is not influenced by climate and does not influence water surface traffic while operating under water.

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Workers were installing the rail. Photo by Peng Junjun