The last tunnel on the Quang Ngai - Hoai Nhon highway will soon be opened.

Taking advantage of favorable weather, construction units of the Quang Ngai - Hoai Nhon expressway component project are making efforts to overcome difficulties and speed up construction progress to soon open (tunnel 3) the longest road tunnel on the North-South expressway phase 2, contributing to speeding up the overall progress of the project on the entire route.

Construction inside tunnel No. 3 of package XL3 of Quang Ngai - Hoai Nhon expressway.

The 88 km long Quang Ngai - Hoai Nhon Expressway with a total investment of more than VND 20,000 billion is the largest project among 12 component projects of the North - South Eastern Expressway Construction Investment Project Phase 2. The project is invested by Project Management Board 2, and Deo Ca Group is the general contractor. Currently, all 3 packages XL1, XL2, XL3 of the Quang Ngai - Hoai Nhon Expressway are being constructed in 3 shifts with 43 construction teams, 3,200 personnel, and more than 1,100 machines and equipment on site. Particularly for important items, the progress critical path such as bridges and tunnels through mountains are being constructed by the contractor continuously 24/24h. Up to now, tunnel 1, 610m long, tunnel 2, 698m long, have been dug by Deo Ca Group, helping to shorten the distance for units to transport machinery and materials to construct tunnel 3. For tunnel 3, the contractor has completed 796/3,200m of the left tunnel tube, and nearly 854/3,200m of the right tunnel tube. Deo Ca Group is making efforts to complete this special-grade road tunnel earlier than the scheduled date of June 2025 to connect the entire Eastern expressway through the two provinces of Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh. General Director of Deo Ca Transport Infrastructure Investment Joint Stock Company - Nguyen Quang Huy said: Deo Ca is making efforts to complete the critical path items of the project, especially the bridge and tunnel items, which are the decisive factors for completing the project on schedule. Currently, Deo Ca has completed 2/3 of the tunnels, constructed 58/77 large bridges on the route, and built 3.3/12.1 million m3 of roadbed. Particularly, tunnel item 3, the longest tunnel of the project, has been dug 26%. However, the geological conditions of tunnel 3 are very complicated, with many changes compared to the original design, causing many difficulties for the construction unit. According to the original design, it is only necessary to dig 100m into the tunnel to encounter grade 1 and grade 2 rocks (hard rocks) for the contractor to increase the digging level, speed up construction, and at the same time take advantage of hard rocks to make concrete, cement, and aggregate for the road and bridge section.

Construction inside tunnel No. 3 of package XL3 of Quang Ngai - Hoai Nhon expressway.

However, the contractor has dug 400m into the ground and still encountered weak geology with level 4 rocks, so the construction stages must be organized more carefully. In addition, level 4 rocks arising from the tunnel excavation process cannot be utilized, so we have to spend money to buy commercial rocks to make cement concrete for other items. "To overcome the above difficulties, we are improving the method of digging the Deo Ca system, increasing the space scale in the tunnel to speed up the construction of more construction points. In addition, we are continuing to work with the project investor to re-determine the geological conditions to come up with the fastest solution for tunnel construction," Mr. Huy emphasized. Currently, the site clearance work for the Quang Ngai - Hoai Nhon expressway has only reached 96%, with the most problems in the sections passing through Tu Nghia district, Quang Ngai province. Currently, 16/19 mines for construction materials for the expressway have been licensed, but for many reasons, the contractor still has difficulty accessing and exploiting mines to serve the expressway.

Pham Cuong (Vietnam News Agency)

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