Two mammoth swivel bridge girders, each weighing over 40,000 tons, were rotated in perfect synchronization to their targeted positions in eastern China's Lushan City on Thursday morning.
The simultaneous 90-degree clockwise rotation of the 41,400-ton and 47,600-ton T-shaped girders, which together weigh as much as two aircraft carriers, was completed in just 79 minutes. This achievement marks the successful completion of the world's largest asymmetrical curved cable-stayed bridge.
The bridge is part of a critical transportation hub, spanning 14 different rail lines including the Beijing-Kowloon Railway and Wuhan-Jiujiang High-Speed Rail. It handles around 500 trains per day, with a train crossing the bridge approximately every 3 minutes.
Meanwhile, a 25,000-ton swivel rail girder was rotated 99.1 degrees clockwise on Friday morning in Tianmen City, central China's Hubei Province, officially completing the Tianmen east section of the Wuhan-Chongqing Expressway.
The 133-meter long and six-lane bidirectional bridge is a key part of the 91.28-kilometer Tianmen section of the Wuhan-Chongqing Expressway.
Once fully operational, the new expressway will provide an important east-west transportation corridor, helping to ease traffic pressure on the existing Shanghai-Chengdu and Shanghai-Chongqing expressways.
Massive swivel bridge girders installed in China
The U.S.-led international mission formed a decade ago to combat the Islamic State extremist group in Iraq will cease to exist by September 2025, said a joint statement issued Friday by the U.S. and Iraqi governments.
There will be, however, a "transitioning to bilateral security partnerships in a manner that supports Iraqi forces and maintains pressure on ISIS," said the statement, which on the U.S. part was carried by the State Department's website, using the abbreviation of an alternative name of the Islamic State known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
According to the statement, the Iraq-U.S. Higher Military Commission which consists of representatives from both sides will formulate necessary measures to ensure the safety of coalition advisors present in Iraq during the transitional period.
The coalition's military mission in neighboring Syria, where the Islamic State also operates, "will continue until September 2026," the statement said.
The statement provided few details as to what, if any, number of U.S. troops will leave Iraq as a result of the end of the mission.
"I just want to foot stomp the fact that this is not a withdrawal. This is a transition. It's a transition from a coalition military mission to an expanded U.S.-Iraqi bilateral security relationship," a senior U.S. official told reporters during a briefing Friday.
The United States has some 2,500 military personnel in Iraq and roughly 900 troops in Syria, tasked with the mission of fighting Islamic State militants while also serving as trainers and advisors to local security forces.
U.S.-led coalition mission in Iraq drawing to end by September 2025
