Wuhan, the most important industrial city on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, has started construction of a suspension bridge on the river.

An official with the headquarters for ring road construction of Wuhan City said that the bridge would be 30 kilometers downstream from Wuhan Pass, an important hydrological monitoring station in Wuhan City proper.

The suspension bridge, the first of the kind in Wuhan City, will be 10 kilometers long with a main span of 1,280 meters, and will have six lanes, with a designed maximum speed of 120 km per hour. It will cost 2 billion yuan (about US$241 million).

The bridge will be an important part of the city's 128-km outer ring road, said the official.

Another highway-railway bridge, with an investment of 12.8 billion yuan (about US$1.54 billion), will also start construction at Tianxingzhou of Yangluo to the east of Wuhan late this month, according Li Xiansheng, mayor of Wuhan.

There are already four bridges across the Yangtze in Wuhan Citywhich is divided by the river and its tributary Hanshui into three parts -- Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang.

(Xinhua News Agency November 8, 2003)