Xinhua News Agency, Laos, Boding, March 21 (Reporter Zhang Jianhua) The Boding Tunnel of the China-Laos Railway, which was constructed by the China Railway Fifth Bureau, was successfully completed on the 21st. This is the first long and large tunnel running through the entire line of the China-Laos Railway.

Kansu Benjavong, deputy secretary of the Lao Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, attended the grounding ceremony on the 21st and expressed condolences and congratulations to the builders of the China-Laos Railway. Ju Guojiang, chairman of China-Laos Railway Co., Ltd., said in his speech that the successful completion of the Boding Tunnel, a major and difficult project of China-Laos Railway, was seven months ahead of schedule, marking an important phased victory in the construction of the project. He encouraged all builders to continue to go all out to ensure the smooth completion of the civil works.

The Boding Tunnel on the China-Laos Railway has a total length of 6453.5 meters. It is one of 10 long tunnels over 5 kilometers in length. The tunnel has bad geology such as karst, bedding, fault fracture zone, carbonaceous mudstone, etc., and it changes frequently and is difficult to construct. Since the start of construction of the Boding Tunnel in March 2017, the China Railway Fifth Bureau responsible for the construction has ensured the safe and orderly progress of the tunnel construction by strengthening on-site safety and quality control and other measures, laying a solid foundation for the successful completion.

The China-Laos Railway is a strategic docking project between China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative and Laos’ “turning a land-locked country into a land-union country”. It starts from the Laos-China border port Boding in the north and reaches the Lao capital Vientiane in the south, with a total length of 414 kilometers. The railway is constructed using Chinese management standards and technical standards, with a design speed of 160 kilometers per hour, and is an electrified passenger and freight mixed railway. The project started in December 2016 and is scheduled to be completed and opened to traffic in December 2021.