HotWired Archive
This page first appeared 20 October 1995.


Please Log In
HotWired - World Beat: Planet Wired

The construction of Chep Lap Kok airport, the largest public works project in the world today, is an undertaking as ambitious and as complex as the building of the Pyramids or the Brooklyn Bridge. It is so vast that a visit to the site can easily consume an entire day.

Three islands - The Brothers, Lam Chau, and Chep Lap Kok - were flattened with 20 tons of explosives and shoved into the sea, forming a 3,000-acre platform for the future airport, an area more than three times the size of New York's Central Park. A flotilla of dredges imported nearly 300 million cubic yards of sand and clay to supplement the site's formation. In all, some 400 million cubic yards of material will be moved in the course of construction - a quantity equivalent to the volume of 326 Empire State buildings.

Quicktime movie: 536k This is a global effort. American earthmovers rumble and Indian Tata pickup trucks scurry around the windswept site, operated by contractors from the Netherlands, Belgium, Japan, Britain, and the United States. The terminal's foundation is the product of a consortium of companies from Hong Kong, Japan, China, and the United Kingdom. Services (such as data control) will be provided by a group Italian, British, and Hong Kong firms. Chek Lap Kok's staff will hail from 13 different nations.

Some of the largest machinery ever used in Southeast Asia is assembled here. At one point, the majority of the world's commercial dredger fleet was moored at Chek Lap Kok, including the J. F. J de Nul - among the largest dredgers ever built.

The huge dump trucks used in the preparation of the site are idle now, their labor done. The machines, each capable of hauling 147 tons of rock, are for sale: to acquire a handy new toy for your garden, phone the Provisional Airport Authority at +1 (852) 824 7724 and ask for Ms. Stella Fok.


 Current Planet Wired

Overview

T H R E A D S : 6 topics, 46 links.

Copyright © 1995 HotWired Ventures LLC. All rights reserved.