City in China races to complete super-sized metro station

China 24

China is shifting gears when it comes to transportation. And that’s driving several cities to rev-up construction of their subway networks.

Right now, one city in Guangdong Province is racing to complete a new station that’s expected to be one of the largest in Asia.

CGTN’s Ge Yunfei has witnessed the project move from concept to construction. He visited the site to get a closer look at the infrastructure project.

China is urbanizing faster than any other nation on earth. And one of the best places to measure its progress is underground.

Beneath Guangzhou – the capital of southern China’s Guangdong province – construction workers are building a new subway line some 30 meters down. This far down, temperatures can reach 60 degrees Celsius, as workers soaked in sweat use boring machines to excavate a tunnel.

Up on street level, they’re building a new station called Tianhe Park. It’s as big as ten football fields. When completed it’s expected to be the largest metro station in Asia. Building the station reportedly required the same amount of concrete as the massive Three Gorges Dam.

Station construction has been underway for more than three years. In one year, it’s 90% finished—just waiting for the finishing touches. To build this mega project so fast, the company spared no expense.

The city has over nearly 400 kilometers of metro lines and plans to double it within five years. By the year of 2020, China’s total investment in metro lines could be up to four trillion yuan, or over $600 billion.