Construction of the Taihu Lake Tunnel reached a milestone on November 16 when the first cofferdam, a temporary enclosure created to carry out work safely, was removed to allow the backflow of 250,000 cubic meters of water, bringing back a water area of 76,451 square meters to the lake.

The tunnel, the longest under a lake in China, will be 10.79 kilometers long and 17.45 meters wide. It’s part of the Southern Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou Expressway, a key road network to support the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta.

Zhou Xin, an official of the province’s department of transportation construction, said four cofferdam zones are built to facilitate the gradual construction of the underwater tunnel and mitigate the impact over waterflow in the lake.

A majority of the construction work of the tunnel has been completed now, such as 8.37 kilometers of tunnel floor. The return of water to the first cofferdam means construction is well on its way. The aim is to get the tunnel pass through before the end of this year.

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