HAIKOU, July 19./TASS/. The flow of passengers across the Hainan Strait, which separates mainland China from the island province of Hainan, increased from January to June by 7.1% to a record 8,87 million people due to constantly growing traffic on this busy section of the Chinese transport communications.

According to the maritime affairs department of the island, the number of ship calls from the mainland to the port of Haikou also grew during this period: 39,600 ships of various types visited it within six months, which is 5.3% higher than in the first two quarters of 2018. In addition to passengers, the vessels delivered 55.7 million tonnes of cargo to Hainan (an increase of 13.3%). At the same time, the positive trend was followed by a decrease of 4%, to 1,81 million vehicles, an indicator of regular ferry transportation of ground vehicles.

As the flow of passengers grows, the matter of building an underground tunnel across the Hainan Strait is becoming more and more important. As one of the developers of this project informed the portal "Paper", the work on it is nearing completion. Railway trains and cars will run through the tunnel in both directions along six-lane highways.

The 20–40 km wide strait of Hainan with a maximum depth of 120 meters reaches stretches along 80 km. Cargos and passengers are being transported not only to the island, but also to Vietnam via the strait. Previously, the issue of building a bridge across the strait was considered, however, due to the devastating typhoons that dispupt Hainan’s regular transport links to the mainland, Chinese experts considered this project unacceptable for security reasons. In this regard, the provincial authorities decided to begin construction of a 24 km long underwater tunnel at a depth of 300 meters, which will be the longest in the world.