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Watch: World’s tallest bridge opens in China. It's nearly 9 times higher than the Golden Gate Bridge

World’s tallest bridge opens in China
World’s tallest bridge opens in China Copyright  Credit: CCTV via AP
Copyright Credit: CCTV via AP
By Theo Farrant
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At 625 metres above the Beipan River, the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge is more than two times taller than the Shard in London.

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After three years of construction, the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge is now open to traffic in China's Guizhou Province, cutting travel across the canyon from two hours to just two minutes.

Soaring 625 metres above the Beipan River, the structure is officially the tallest bridge in the world, and with a 1,420-metre main span, it has also become the world's longest-span steel truss girder suspension bridge in mountainous terrain.

The new bridge surpasses the previous record-holder - another Beipan River span located about 100 km away, opened in 2016 with a height of 565.4 metres.

Behind the colossal project lies cutting-edge engineering. Builders used satellite navigation, drones, ultra-high-strength materials and smart monitoring systems to achieve millimetre-level precision.

It also doubles as a tourist attraction: visitors can ride elevators up to a glass-walled observation platform, sip coffee from a cafe atop the bridge tower, or even go bungee jumping and skydiving over the canyon.

Over the years, Guizhou, one of China's least developed provinces, has constructed over 30,000 bridges in its mountainous terrain, including three of the world's tallest. The province is home to nearly half of the world's 100 tallest bridges.

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