Chinese railway builders completed the digging of a 4,628-meter-long mountain tunnel in South China on Sept 28, marking a milestone in the completion of a railway artery to better link regions in Southwest and South China.

Builders from China Railway No 4 Engineering Group Co Ltd (CREC4), who are partially constructing the 237.8-kilometer-long Liuzhou-Wuzhou Railway in Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region — also known as the Liuzhou-Wuzhou section of the Liuzhou-Guangzhou Railway — finished digging the Taiping Tunnel after arduous work.

Hu Yufei, director of the No 3 bid section of the CREC4 project department for building the Liuzhou-Wuzhou Railway, said works were completed despite exceptionally-complex geological conditions, such as fractured zones, karst and soft clay.

With the full connection of the Taiping Tunnel, all 54 tunnels along the Liuzhou-Wuzhou Railway are completed, marking a major achievement for the railway, which can transport both goods and passengers and allow trains to run at around 160 km per hour upon its expected operation on Sept 30, 2026, said Hu.

CREC4 Fifth Engineering is helping build the railway's No 3 bid section with a total length of 27.722 km, worth some 2.176 billion yuan ($306 million), Hu highlighted.

As a major engineering project of the country's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), the railway can be the main channel for goods from Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces and Chongqing municipality to reach the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Great Bay Area faster, he added.