An undersea tunnel (n.隧道) of a high-speed railway was completed in South China on Friday,    1     (set) a new record in the construction of high-speed railway tunnels in China.

The Zhanjiang Bay (湛江湾) Undersea Tunnel, a key project of the Guangzhou-Zhanjiang High-speed Railway,    2     (complete) after 33 months of construction, marking a significant milestone in the construction of the new railway.

The Zhanjiang Bay Undersea Tunnel spans (v.横跨)    3     total length of 9,640 meters. It is designed as a single tunnel with double tracks, crossing the seabed of the Zhanjiang Bay and the urban area of Zhanjiang. It crosses a 2,500-meter sea section and a 5,051-meter section of land.    4     (especial), the tunnel is China’s    5     (long) single-headed undersea high-speed railway shield tunnel (盾构隧道), showcasing the country’s remarkable engineering techniques.

“Single-headed shield (单头盾构) refers to the method of using a single tunnel boring machine (隧道掘进机)     6     (dig) continuously from one end to the other,” said Yin Yihao, an engineer from China Railway’s 14th Bureau Group, which was responsible for the tunnel’s construction. Yin added that the traditional methods were not applied in the Zhanjiang Bay Undersea Tunnel due to the complicated geological conditions and    7    the single-headed shield tunnel was    8       (safe) and more efficient in this case.

Wu Chunzhao, a senior engineer of the China Railway Design Company,    9     (explain) the reason for building an undersea tunnel instead of a bridge. “Building a tunnel preserves (v.保护) the beautiful urban skyline of the Zhanjiang Bay,    10     avoids the impact of the project on the marine (adj.海洋的) ecological environment,” he said. Wu also noted (v.指出) that a bridge will affect the large ships’ navigation, but the tunnel will not do this.

The tunnel is a key project of a high-speed railway linking Guangzhou and Zhanjiang in Guangdong.

As a pioneer bullet train (动车) driver, Li Dongxiao, 52, is part of the history of China’s high-speed railway network. In 2008, he drove China’s first high-speed train,     1     (reach) 350 kilometers per hour, between Beijing and Tianjin.

    2     number on Li’s bullet train driver’s license is 0001, which led the media to give him the name of China’s “first” bullet train driver. “Over 14 years, the length of the network has grown     3     zero to more than 40, 000 kilometers, and more varieties of Fuxing bullet trains have been developed and adopted, ”he said.

However, all those     4     (impress) achievements came from the ground up. Driving at high-speed is among certain     5     (profession) that require strict training. In March 2008, Li, along with some of China’s best train drivers,     6     (select) to undergo training to operate bullet trains at the manufacturer, China CNR Corp. He participated in more than 200 test runs and created a guidebook for bullet train drivers,     7     was named after him as the “Dongxiao Manual”.

China’s high-speed rail network     8     (see) rapid development over the past 20 years. Li’s development has been intertwined with the evolution of China’s high-speed railway system. He no longer     9     (operate) bullet trains himself, but is now head of the Huairou North locomotive depot (机务段) in Beijing, which is the center of train operations, repair and maintenance. Even more importantly, it is     10     all the drivers receive their training.

The total number of China-Europe cargo (货物)train trips has exceeded 50,000 as a cargo train left the southwestern city of Chengdu on January 29,    1     (office) data showed, a stable contribution to the global supply chain.

The value of goods     2     (transport) by the cargo service skyrocketed to $ 74.9 billion in 2021. From 2016 to 2021, the China-Europe Railway Express had an increase of 55 percent on average     3    (year), extending to 180 cities in 23 countries in the Europe, and the items have expanded from IT     4    (product) such as mobile phones and notebook computers at the    5     (begin), to more than 50000 items, including auto parts, vehicles, chemicals, electro-mechanicals, food, alcohol, and wood.

The China-Europe cargo train serves     6     a crucial link for trade and economic cooperation across the Eurasian region. It     7     (run) smoothly since 2020, as the world is facing the impact of the epidemic (流行病), and the trains also play     8     important role in fighting the epidemic with the transport of epidemic prevention materials.

A total of 13.62 million pieces of anti-epidemic materials,     9     (weigh) more than 00,000 tons, have been delivered to Germany, Poland, Belgium and other European countries,    10     has become a “bond of destiny” for countries to join hands in fighting the epidemic.