The 33.9 kilometre (21 mile) Saemangeum seawall encloses 401 square kilometres (160 square miles) of seawater or tidal mudflats, about two thirds the size of Seoul."Saemangeum is the largest-ever engineering project in this country and will change the country's landscape," said President Lee Myung-Bak at the televised inauguration.
The government has so far spent 2.9 trillion won (2.6 billion dollars) on the project, which began almost two decades ago but was repeatedly suspended amid a lawsuit by environmentalists.
Another 21 trillion won in state and private spending is envisaged over the next decade to reclaim land, build infrastructure and create giant freshwater reservoirs.
Lee called the structure, which incorporates a road, "the Great Wall on the sea", saying it would become an economic highway for South Korea to reach the world beyond Northeast Asia.
Agriculture minister Chang Tae-Pyong said the project would convert mudflats and shallow tidal waters into a centre for low-carbon, green growth industries, leisure, the environment and agriculture.
The ministry said it replaces the Zuiderzee dyke in the Netherlands, completed in 1933, as the world's longest seawall.
The inauguration of the first phase featured the opening of the road along the top.
The reclamation project was first mooted in the early 1970s and work on the west coast dyke, 200 kilometres (125 miles) south of Seoul, began in 1991.
http://www.physorg.com/news191589461.html
No comments:
Post a Comment