The 55-kilometer bridge connecting Zhuhai in Guangdong province with Hong Kong and Macao is under construction on April 29, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

Chinese engineers installed a 6,000-ton key structure of the world’s longest cross-sea bridge linking Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao.

The wedge, 12-meter-long and weighing more than 25 Airbus A380 jets, was lowered to connect the immersed tubes of the underground tunnel of the bridge, said Lin Ming, chief engineer of the island and tunnel section of the bridge.

The 55-kilometer bridge connects Zhuhai in Guangdong Province with Hong Kong and Macao. It includes a 22.9-km bridge and 6.7-km underground tunnel.

Before the wedge was installed on Tuesday, 33 immersed tubes, each 180 meters long and weighing 80,000 tons, had been installed.

“There is only one wedge for a tunnel, and we cannot afford to fail in its installation. It took two years to prepare for today,” said Chen Yue, director of the engineers’ office of the bridge’s island and tunnel section. The installation procedure took about six hours.

“The margin of error for the wedge is 1.5 centimeters. We have to measure precisely the influence of wind, current and buoyancy force,” said Lin.

“It is like putting a needle through a hole — a truly unprecedented event in the history of transportation,” Lin said.

A gigantic crane, which was transformed from a tanker, was used to hoist the wedge, lowering it to the desired destination between the underwater tubes.

The wedge will be welded and finished by June, Lin said.

By the end of the year, the bridge will be open to traffic, said Zhu Yongling, director of the bridge management bureau.

Construction began in December of 2009 at Zhuhai. The Y-shaped bridge starts from Lantau Island in Hong Kong with branches to Zhuhai and Macao.

The bridge will cut travel time from Hong Kong to both Zhuhai and Macao from three hours on the road to a 30-minute drive.

As more hospitals mine big data to improve services and tackle illnesses, the central government has vowed to safeguard patients’ personal information with a new regulation on h

The Ministry of Agriculture set up a unit to tackle soil pollution and degradation of arable land.

The new arable land quality monitoring and protection center will build a nationwide network to monitor arable land quality and treat degradation and pollution, said Zeng Yande, an official at the ministry.

The black soil in northeastern provinces is degrading, farmland in some northwestern regions are plagued by salinization while a few places in southern provinces are suffering from heavy metal pollution, according to Zeng.

The move came amid efforts to ensure food security as climate change and pollutants eroded arable land and reduced its capacity to produce food.

Total arable land in the country was 135 million hectares at the end of 2015. China has set a base line of 124 million ha.

A woman died of H7N9 bird flu infection in central China’s Hubei Province, local authorities said Tuesday.

The woman, 68, tested positive for the H7N9 strain of virus on April 27 after days of high fever with no apparent cause, the emergency response office of Wuhan City Government said in a statement.

She died on April 30.

H7N9 is a bird flu strain first reported to have infected humans in China in March 2013. Infections are most likely occur in winter and spring.

Notices of punishment of legal personnel and institutions have been made available on the official website of the Ministry of Justice.

Such notices issued after Jan. 1, 2017 by judicial administrations, notary and bar associations upon law firms, notary offices, judicial expertise institutions and its staff were available on the website from Monday.

The move was aimed tat better protecting people’s legal rights and standardizing professional conduct, according to the Ministry of Justice.