XN000022-1997-04-13 — Page 5

2.

Mr Kwong said that three crucial stages in building the Tsing Ma Bridge were construction of the towers, which are more than 200 metres in height, spinning of the huge suspension cables and erection of the 1,000-tonne sections for the suspended deck.

"We were able to keep much to schedule in these phases. We were blessed with fairly good weather, and on only one occasion did a typhoon pose a threat," he said.

"Building the concrete towers was a big job, and once each tower was slipformed, in only about three months in 1993, we really felt we were halfway towards completion of the bridge."

Erecting the deck was a challenging undertaking, but after the first section had been raised, the entire exercise went smoothly, lasting from August 1995 to March 1996.

The sections were assembled near Dongguan in southern China, out of prefabricated parts made in Britain and Japan and transported by barge down the Pearl

River.

The steel in the deck weighs 55,000 tonnes. The length of the individual steel wires that make up the 1.1-metre suspension cables is enough to go round the Earth four times. The cables themselves are restrained in massive anchorages at either end, in which the concrete weighs up to 250,000 tonnes.

The bridge has been built by the Anglo Japanese Construction Joint Venture, under a $7.1 billion contract which is the third largest in the entire Airport Core Programme.

The Kap Shui Mun Bridge has been built under a "design and build" contract, a task that posed its own special challenges for the contractor, the Kumagai-Maeda- Yokogawa-Hitachi Joint Venture, but it too went smoothly once work began.

Construction of the 150-metre concrete towers was accomplished in good time, clearing the way for erection of the composite concrete and steel deck, which began in May 1995, and was also completed in March 1996.

The Lantau Link and its associated road network have been designated a control area, to maintain safe and efficient traffic operations on it. The control area is equipped with a sophisticated computer-based Traffic Control and Surveillance System.