On Oct 7, just after the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday, the construction site of the Tian'e Longtan Bridge was bustling with over 100 workers. They were racing against time to complete the construction of the first batch of arch beams, with the goal of opening the bridge to traffic by the end of the year.

Located 6 kilometers upstream of the Longtan Dam in Tian'e county, Hechi, the Tian'e Longtan Bridge is a key part of the Nandan-Tian'e Xialao High-Speed Expressway. The construction of this bridge is being led by Professor Zheng Jielian, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a professor at the School of Civil and Architectural Engineering at Guangxi University.

The bridge spans the Hongshui River and has a total length of 2,488.55 meters. The main bridge is a cable-stayed reinforced concrete arch bridge with a span of 600 meters. After comparing a large amount of data, Guangxi Transportation Investment Group confirmed that the Tian'e Longtan Bridge is the world's largest arch bridge currently under construction.

Once completed, the Tian'e Longtan Bridge will set a new record for arch bridges with spans of 600 meters. It has immense scientific value and profound social significance in construction techniques and methods for long-span arch bridges.

Tian'e Longtan Bridge. [Photo/Hechi Daily]