BEIJING: Construction began on the Nu River Bridge, a project along the Sino-Myanmar Railway, on Sunday (Jan 24). It will be the steel truss railroad bridge with the longest span in the world, reported People's Daily on Monday.

Located at the junction of the Shidian county and Longling county in southwest China's Yunnan Province, the Nu River Bridge will have a total length of 1,024 meters. The height of the bridge above the river will be 211 meters. The bridge will mainly use steel truss arch beams with a span of 490 meters.

Yan Shuxin, a director from the constructors, China Railway 18 Bureau Group, said that due to restrictions arising from the special topography of the Nu River and Gaoligong mountains, the railway station will be built upon a deck. The width of the deck will reach 24.9 meters, which will be the widest among the same type of railway bridges in China.

The construction of the Nu River Bridge will use over 46,000 tons of steel. It will require rare precision in the manufacturing of the steel trusses, and pose high risks in terms of assembling steel trusses at high-altitude.

The Sino-Myanmar Railway linking China's Kunming and Myanmar's Yangon covers a total length of 1,920 kilometers, among which, a 690-km-long section is in the territory of China. A 350-km-long railway from Kunming to Dali in China has been built. With the Nu River Railway Bridge, the 340-km-long railway linking Dali and Ruili will help to reduce the current travel time of 7 hours to about 2 hours by train.