After eight years of construction, the longest bridge in Bangladesh – the Padma Bridge – was completed and opened to traffic on 25 June 2022. It connects the capital Dhaka with 21 districts in the south of the country.

Chinese contractor China Railway Group Limited – CREC in short – took part in the project through its subsidiaries. One of them is China Railway Major Bridge Reconnaissance & Design Institute Co Ltd, which undertook the survey and design of the bridge, while China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group carried out the construction work with participation from China Railway Hi-Tech Industry Co Ltd.

In its statement, CREC revealed that this is the largest overseas single-bridge project won by a Chinese company. Crossing the Padma River, the new multipurpose road-rail bridge is located about 40 km southwest of Dhaka. Construction work started in 2014.

With a length of 6.15 km, the main bridge features a double-deck steel truss structure, said CREC. The upper deck has a four-lane, two-way road with a designed speed of 100 km/hr, and the lower deck has a single-track rail with a designed speed of 100 km/hr.

According to CREC, the main bridge is a steel truss structure spanning 150 m. The full-span steel box girder of the bridge weighs 3,200 t, making it “the world’s heaviest and longest full-span steel box girder.”

CREC added that China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group applied its independently-developed, 3,600-t-capacity Tianyi integrated beam carrier in the construction of the main bridge.

Image: Rezuanur Rahman Mubin/Unsplash