Bridge gets bay's greater integration underway

After 14 years of planning and construction and weathering the destructive force of a super typhoon, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge was declared open by President Xi Jinping at a ceremony on Tuesday.

The 55-kilometer Y-shaped bridge, which comes into operation for vehicles on Wednesday, links the two special administrative regions and a special economic zone, and will stitch the cluster of 11 cities in the Greater Bay Area closer together.

The successful completion of the bridge defied the negative predictions of many foreign experts who at first deemed the project technically infeasible. And its opening has dismissed suggestions that the structure would not be able to withstand the force of super typhoon Mangkhut, the fiercest storm to visit this part of the world in recent decades. The bridge, one of the longest fixed-links in the world, stood the test of nature, surviving intact and unscathed in the Lingding Channel, showcasing the excellence of Chinese engineering.