The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are coming closer together thanks to the new Panama Canal. Flooding of part of the new set of locks on the Pacific side is being carried shortly after the successful operation was conducted on the Atlantic.
The project, known as the Third Set of Locks, is rushing towards completion next year. The international consortium that is building the canal and led at the operational level by Salini Impregilo will begin within two weeks a series of stress tests on the giant lock gates.
The lock gates are – on average – about 35 meters tall, 10 meters wide and 55 meters long. Each weighs more than 4,000 tonnes.
Built in Italy, these sliding gates were installed in the locks at the end of March. The tests, which will focus on the opening and closing of the sliding gates, will last for the remainder of the year.
This massive Panama Canal Expansion Project has seen the excavation of 50 million metric cubes of earth, the pouring of five million metric cubes of concrete, the use of 290,000 tonnes of iron and the work of more than 10,000 workers.