The Haizhu Bay Tunnel, the first super-large-diameter shield tunnel in the Pearl River Basin, was finally drilled through in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, on Monday, marking new progress in its construction.
The total length of the two-way six-lane tunnel, a provincial and municipal double key project, is 4.35 kilometers. The shield section is 2,077 meters long, and the excavation diameter is 15.07 meters, while the outer diameter of the segment is 14.5 meters.
"The Haizhu Bay Tunnel is the most crucial control project of the Guangzhou South Railway Station's rapid transit system. It is also the first project in Guangzhou to utilize a super-large-diameter shield tunnel to cross the Pearl River system. Today, the smooth operation of the boring machine used for constructing the west tunnel marks the achievement of the drill-through of two tunnels of the key project in Guangdong Province," said Wang Haijun, general manager of the project.
Upon its completion and inauguration in 2025, it will form an express channel between Guangzhou's city center and Guangzhou South Railway Station, cutting the travel time between them to 15 minutes, and further improve the infrastructure level of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Ultra-large-diameter tunnel drilled through in Guangdong
U.S. President Donald Trump said on social media Friday that he would grant ByteDance an additional 75-day extension to either sell the popular video-sharing app TikTok to a non-Chinese company or risk being banned in the United States.
In his first term, Trump signed an executive order effectively seeking to ban the app in the United States unless ByteDance sold its U.S. operations to an American company, but the order didn't go into effect amid legal challenges.
In April 2024, then U.S. President Joe Biden signed a law that gave ByteDance 270 days to sell TikTok, citing unfounded national security concerns. If the company failed to comply, the law would require app store operators such as Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their platforms starting on Jan 19, 2025.
However, after taking office on Jan 20, Trump signed an executive order to delay the TikTok ban by 75 days "to permit my Administration an opportunity to determine the appropriate course of action with respect to TikTok." That extension was set to expire on April 5.
In the early hours of Saturday, ByteDance announced that negotiations with the U.S. government over TikTok's future are still ongoing, with no agreement yet reached. The company stated that the two sides remain divided on many key issues.
It also emphasized that any potential deal must undergo review procedures in accordance with Chinese laws.
Trump extends TikTok ban deadline for another 75 days
