On April 7, 2018, Marvelous Creation Excelling Nature, a TV program on CCTV-2, made an in-depth report about the Padma Bridge in Bangladesh, a project we took part in.

Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, has a population of 15 million. It is one of the most congested cities in the world. Traffic is the biggest problem in the city. Padma River that goes across the city nurtures local people and becomes a gigantic barrier between the north and south of the country. Abundant subtropical rainfall constantly causes flooding for the river so that the river transportation may be shut down at any time.

In the vicinity of the city, a 6km cross-river bridge - Padma Bridge was started to be built by the engineers from China. When it is completed, it will not only put the north and south together, but become the traffic hub to connect Bangladesh to China, Myanmar and India.

Then, the first key construction node came. The longest, heaviest steel pile in the world had to be driven in the river bed. The steel pile is made by China Railway Jiujiang Bridge Engineering Company, which is a sub company of CRHIC. Besides processing and manufacturing the steel pipe piles for the main bridge, Jiujiang Bridge had re-constructed the 1000-ton "Tianyi" derrick barge to provide powerful technical and equipment support for the construction of the bridge. China Railway Shanhaiguan Bridge Group, another sub company of CRHIC, was assigned to the tasks of manufacturing all of the 130,000 tons of steel truss beam for Padma Bridge.

After 48 hours of work, the 120m long, 3m diameter and 550 ton steel pile, the largest in the world, for the bridge pier was firmly driven 120m into the riverbed. It was a world new record made by the team consisting of 600 engineers and technicians and 70+ equipment from China.

The main bridge of Padma Bridge is 6.15km long. It is a road and railway bridge with the upper deck being four-lane roads, and the lower deck one-way railway. The superstructure is made up with 41 steel truss beams with the span of 150m. A single hole weighed about 3200 tons. It is one of the important passages to connect China to the Pan-Asia railways in Southeast Asia, as well as an important traffic hub sponsored by the "Belt and Road Initiative". It not only serves for the transportation between the 21 districts in the south of Bangladesh and Dhaka, but also joins China to the south of Pan-Asia Railway in India. It plays an important role for deepening the cooperation between China and South Asia and surrounding countries. At present, the bridge is under construction, and is expected to open to traffic in 2018.