The photograph says it all ................

"No man stands so tall .................... "

Bridge Open ..... in China

China apart from being one of the fastest growing countries in terms of technology and economy, now has one more thing to boast about – the world’s longest sea bridge. The newly constructed 26.4 miles-long Qingdao Haiwan Bridge would easily cross the English Channel and is almost 3 miles longer than the previous record-holder, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in the American state of Louisiana.


The vast structure links the centre of the booming port city of Qingdao in eastern China’s Shandong Province with the suburb of Huangdao, spanning the wide blue waters of Jiaozhou Bay. At least 10,000 workers toiled in two teams around the clock to build the bridge, which was constructed from opposite ends and connected in the middle in the last few days.

A staggering 450,000 tons of steel was used in its construction – enough for almost 65 Eiffel Towers – and 2.3 million cubic metres of concrete, equivalent to filling 3,800 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Chinese officials said that the bridge will be strong enough to withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake, typhoons or the impact of a 300,000 tonne vessel.

In December 2009, work started on a 31 mile bridge that will link Zhuhai in southern Guangdong Province, China’s manufacturing heartland, with the financial centre of Hong Kong. The £6.5 billion project is expected to be completed in 2016.

THE BRIDGE BUILDER

I first heard this, 1943 or '44, Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Chicago. My brothers was going through a V-12 program to become an officer, and we went to the base church with him on a Sunday morning. Some may remember, Eddie Peabody was stationed there, and played his banjo. The Chaplain ended his sermon with this poem.

An old man, going down a lone highway
Came at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm vast and wide and steep,
With waters rolling cold and deep.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fears for him.
But he turned when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,
"You are wasting your strength with building here.
Your journey will end with the ending day,
You never again will pass this way.
You've crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build you this bridge at eventide?"
The builder lifted his old gray head.

"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followed after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
The chasm that was as naught to me
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim --
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him."

--Will Allen Dromgoole