Chinese engineers are helping overcome rugged geology and extreme conditions beneath Malaysia’s Titiwangsa mountains in Pahang State, contributing in the excavation of Southeast Asia's longest rail tunnel, a vital section of the 12.5 billion U.S.-dollar East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project.
Scheduled to open by 2027, the multi-billion-dollar ECRL project stands as a symbol of China-Malaysia cooperation, promising to revitalize Peninsular Malaysia’s underdeveloped east coast with enhanced connectivity and economic growth.
The Genting Tunnel is a crucial part of the ECRL project, which is now being excavated using the latest Chinese tunnel-boring technology. The tunnel passes beneath Malaysia's Titiwangsa mountain range and will link the eastern portion of the ECRL to the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur in the west. It’s a vital and challenging segment of the rail link.
Sun Guangbing, deputy construction director for section 7 of the ECRL project, highlighted several challenges during the tunnel excavation including injecting grout into poorly-formed geological sections and addressing water-filled fractured zones. Additional hurdles involve dealing with hard metamorphic rock, ensuring long-distance ventilation, managing high temperatures, and maintaining effective drainage systems, according to Sun.
"The biggest challenges and difficulties we faced during construction are issues such as poor geological segments and fractured zones," said Sun.
Eventually, trains will speed along the 665-kilometer length of the ECRL from the big west coast ports, across the peninsula to the under-developed east coast and north to the city of Kota Bahru near the Thailand border.
But now, there are only very rudimentary trains trundle through the tunnel at about 10 kilometers an hour, bringing supplies and workers to the boring machines. When it's completed, this will be the longest rail tunnel in Southeast Asia, stretching more than 16 kilometers.
The main contractor on the ECRL project, CCCC, brought in two giant tunnel boring machines from China, each stretching more than 250 meters in length.
Aside from boring through the mountain, the machines also simultaneously remove the debris on a conveyor belt, and line the walls of tunnel with concrete. The machines arrived from China in hundreds of segments before being reassembled at the construction site and beginning boring the two parallel tunnels.
They are now expected to break through to the other side of the mountain range within weeks. That will mark a major milestone for the rail link project, which is now more than 80 percent complete.
Chinese engineers aid breakthrough on Southeast Asia's longest rail tunnel in Malaysia
