Drilling work completes on a 4.6km section of Hai Van tunnel 2. — Photo courtesy Đèo Cả company

ĐÀ NẴNG — Drilling has been completed on a 4.6km section of Hải Vân Tunnel 2, while the walls for another 1.6km section have been finished after three years of construction.

Representatives of the Đèo Cả Investment Joint-Stock Company confirmed to Việt Nam News that 74 per cent of work has been completed on schedule.

The company said 30 per cent of the 5.8km entrance roads and traffic signals on the two sides of the Hải Vân Tunnel 2 were finished in late March.

It said the 6.29km tunnel project will be technically cleared this October in preparation for the final stage of the longest road tunnel in Việt Nam and ASEAN.

Construction on the second two-lane Hải Vân Tunnel 2, which runs parallel to the two-lane Hải Vân 1 tunnel, and upgrading the current two-lane Hải Vân No 1 on the National Highways No 1A, started in April 2016 with total investment of VNĐ8.5 trillion (US$376 million).

The completion of the 6.29km Hải Vân Tunnel 2 project and 5.85km entrance roads at the two ends of the tunnel will help speed up travel time for vehicles on the North-South road from 2020.

According to Đèo Cả company, nearly 2.8 million vehicles passed through the Hải Vân Tunnel 1 last year, and the tunnel plays a key role in the East-West Economic Corridor that links Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and Việt Nam, and National Highway No 1A.

The two-lane Hải Vân Tunnel No1, which was built at a cost of $150 million with part of Japan’s Official Development Assistance, was the longest road tunnel in Southeast Asia when it opened in 2005.

The tunnel was built for traffic through the 24km Hải Vân Pass between Đà Nẵng and Thừa Thiên-Huế.  

The Ministry of Transport also built the 80km La Sơn- Túy Loan section on the Hồ Chí Minh Highway in central Thừa Thiên-Huế Province to help reduce congestion through the Hải Vân tunnel. — VNS