Major construction of the Mioazui Cross-Yangtze River has been started recently and erection of the 58 piers will be finished before April 20th.

　　Braving the biting wind, 280 workers have been toiling and moiling on the south part of the site of the Miaozui Cross-Yangtze Bridge with great enthusiasm. Beginning with the first concrete truck entering the project site, foundation of the first major pier was started at 13:08, January 8. Three hours later, the major pier was successfully concreted.

　　As Yuan Qinghua, deputy commander of the construction site headquarters of this project explained, safety control takes priority in spite of the tight schedule of the project. He said that foundation of the piers is a key process which determines the highly efficient constancy of the whole project. In total 58 bored piles in the south and north sections as well we the Xiba section will be founded, in which 18 bored major piers are to be erected in two stages, each stage taking at least 50 days. If the project can not be conducted in a row, it will delay the opening to traffic. In order to take advantage of the dry season, drilling and concreting of all the major and minor piers must be finished before April 20 this year. Also, as scheduled, before the end of June, the main pier main tower pier bases must be concreted before the end of June, as means that the engineers, technicians and workers will have to keep working during the period of the Spring Festival on the construction site.

　　The Miaozui Cross-Yangtze Bridge, located in Yichang downtown, is about 2.7km away from the upstream Gezhouba Water Controlling Project, and starting from the second Dongyue Road and ending at the second Xiling Road, it will cross the Jiangnan Avenue, No. 318 National Highway, the specific section of the Yangtze River, the Xiba district, the Sanjiang district and the Yanjiang Avenue, with a length of 3234.7 meters in total. It is designed as a two-way, six-lane and 1st-class urban trunk road with a speed limit of 60 kilometers per hour.

　　As it has been scheduled, the bridge will be constructed within three years, and in this year, great efforts will be made for erection of the main tower pier bases and anchorage as well as the other related construction parts on both sides. 2014 will witness wielding of the steel girders, fabrication of the pre-cast deck units, completion of the 838-m anchorage tracks of main span and installation of the main cable ropes and rope clips and slings. Before December 31st, 2015, the whole bridge will be constructed with steel girders and pre-cast deck units fixed as well as the other components including bump walls and asphalt pavement set.

　　Some section of the bridge will cross part area of the Chinese sturgeon natural reserve. In order to exert less influence on the life of Chinese sturgeons during the period of construction, no pier will be founded on the river bed in his section, which requires 200 million RMB more than the generally designed project in budge.