Chinese workers have completed the northern part of a north-south railway project that will link up Guangdong Province on the Chinese mainland and Hainan Island.

The Chinese mainland and Hainan Island are separated by Qiongzhou Straits. People traveling to Hainan Island have to resort to ferries and flights.

Guangdong-Hainan railway thoroughfare, the country's first of the kind that will cross the straits, begins with Zhanjiang, Guangdong Province, in the north, cuts through Leizhou Peninsula, extends across the Qiongzhou Straits, joins the existing railway line in western Hainan Island at Chahe and ends in Sanya City at the southern tip of Hainan Island.

With a length of 568.3 km, the railway thoroughfare is jointly invested by the Chinese Ministry of Railways, Hainan Province and Guangdong Province at a financing of 4.5 billion yuan (about US$ 542 million). It is listed as one of the major railway construction projects for the ninth five-year-plan period (1996- 2000).

The entire railway thoroughfare consists of a 138-kilometer Zhanjiang-Hai'an Railway in Guangdong Province, railway ferry service on Qiongzhou Straits, Haikou-Chahe Rail Line on Hainan Island.

Construction of the railway thoroughfare began in August 1998, with approval from the State Council, China's highest governing body.

It is expected the northern part of the railway thoroughfare will be put into trial service in October this year, said an official in charge of the construction, adding the entire thoroughfare would be fully finished and put into service next year.

(People’s Daily 04/25/2001)