World's longest sea bridge takes shape in east China

BEIJING: Chinese engineers on Tuesday successfully connected two sides of a 36-km-long bridge, claimed to be the world's longest sea-crossing structure.
    
Workers fixed the last steel beam to the bridge spanning Hangzhou bay, near Shanghai, linking Haiyan of Jiaxing city to Cixi of Ningbo city in Zhejiang province of east China.
    
The bridge will cut the length of the road trip from Shanghai to Ningbo by 120 km when it opens to traffic in August 2008. It is designed to last 100 years.
    
The bridge, with a 32-km section spanning the sea, is a cable-stayed structure built at a cost of 11.8 billion yuan (1.42 billion US dollars), Xinhua news agency reported.
    
Private investors funded almost 30 per cent of the project, the first time China's private sector has invested in a major public infrastructure project in the country.
    
Construction of the six-lane bridge, which will have a speed limit of 100 km per hour, began in November 2003.
    
Workers will finish the road paving by the end of the November.