Indonesia is about to build the longest suspension bridge in the world

The Indonesian government is planning to build a suspension bridge over 30 km across the Sunda Strait, linking the two main islands of the country, Java and Sumatra.

The record bridge will be 70 meters above sea level, has 6 lanes of road and two rail lines. The building consists of a series of suspension bridges connected, running through 3 small islands in the Sunda Strait. The longest span is 3 km, nearly one kilometer more than the longest bridge in the world today is Akashi-Kaikyo, inaugurated in 1998 in Japan.

Under the project, the bridge has a construction cost of about $ 12 billion and is expected to start in 2012, completed in 2025. The idea of ​​the giant Java-Sumatra suspension bridge was proposed long ago but could not be materialized due to the Asian economic crisis of 1997.

The memorandum of the bridge construction project was signed on Wednesday, between the governors of Banten province in western Java and Lampung province in southern Sumatra, and representatives of the construction group Artha Graha will take over. construction.

Location of the Java-Sumatra bridge in the future and Karakatoa volcano. (Photo. SMH)

Local officials hope the bridge will relieve the overload in the Sunda Strait and shorten the distance between the two important islands of the country, which takes several hours to ferry. In 2006 a total of more than 20 million people crossed Sunda's waist and this figure is expected to double by 2020.

Experts say that building a 30-kilometer suspension bridge in the area that is frequently hit by earthquakes and strong winds will be a major challenge and if completed, this is the achievement of the world road and bridge industry. The proposed location of the bridge is only about 50 km from the ferocious famous volcano Karakatoa.

Just last month, Sumatra island was hit by a series of earthquakes that killed more than 20 people. Most seriously, the 9-magnitude earthquake on December 26, 2004, off the coast of Sumatra, caused a tsunami that killed more than 275,000 people in dozens of countries around the Indian Ocean, including the worst Aceh province on Sumatra island.

The Akashi Kaikyo bridge in Japan holds the record for the length of the world. (Photo: Wikimedia).

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