The first batch of cross-boundary vehicles on Wednesday left the Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities to drive on the world's longest cross-sea bridge.The 55-km bridge connects China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) in the east and the Macao SAR and Zhuhai of Guangdong Province in the west.The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is the result of nine years of construction.The bridge officially opened to public traffic at 9:00 a.m. local time (0100 GMT) on Wednesday, as the first batch of travelers entered the service hall for customs clearance.At 9:30 a.m. local time (0130 GMT) the first batch of cross-border buses full of passengers, as well as other vehicles hit the road on the bridge for Macao or Zhuhai on the other ends of the Y-shaped bridge.Without the bridge, drivers from Hong Kong, which faces Zhuhai across the Lingding Channel had to detour via several cities including Shenzhen and Dongguan to reach Zhuhai and other cities in the western part of Guangdong.Crossing the mega bridge is a bucket list experience for many residents. A Hong Kong resident surnamed Lee in his 70s was one of them. He got up early on Wednesday to take the first bus to ride on the bridge, only to catch a glimpse of the grand project.The bridge will slash road travel time from Hong Kong to Macao and Zhuhai remarkably.A Hong Kong resident surnamed Wong works in Macao and has to commute between Hong Kong and Macao regularly. He usually takes ferries, as road travel would take about three hours.But the new bus service via the bridge will take less than an hour and the ticket is cheaper, and he plans to take it as a key commuting alternative in the future, Wong said. wristbands canadacustom silicone bracelets canadarubber bracelets canadasilicone bracelets canadasilicone wristbands canadacustom wristbands canadacanadian wristbandswristbands canada
Family members of a plane crash victim react outside a morgue at the Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Tuesday, a day after the deadly crash of a US-Bangla Airlines plane at the international airport. [Photo/Agencies] President Xi Jinping on Tuesday sent messages of condolence to his Bangladeshi counterpart Abdul Hamid and Nepalese counterpart Bidya Devi Bhandari after a deadly passenger plane crash a day earlier left 49 dead and 22 injured. In his messages, Xi said he learned that the crash caused heavy casualties. On behalf of the Chinese government and people as well as in his own name, Xi offered his condolences to the victims and sympathy to their relatives. Meanwhile, Premier Li Keqiang also expressed condolences to prime ministers in both Bangladesh and Nepal over the tragedy. The Nepalese government on Tuesday formed a probe panel to investigate the cause of the crash. A statement from the prime minister's office said a six-member team headed by a former government secretary will gather the facts to determine the cause and prevent future incidents. The Bombardier Dash Q-400 aircraft, with 71 people onboard, crashed while landing at Nepal's Tribhuvan International Airport on Monday afternoon. The UBG211 flight was en route to Kathmandu from Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Chinese embassy said on Tuesday that a Chinese man was among the 49 people killed in the crash. The incident took place due to the pilot's missed approach, authorities said. Of the 67 passengers onboard, 33 were from Nepal, 32 from Bangladesh, one from China and one from the Maldives, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal. The injured are receiving treatment at local hospitals in Kathmandu. Officials said that the death toll may increase. The pilot did not follow the control tower's instructions and approached the runway from the wrong direction, the Kathmandu airport's general manager said. But the conversations between the pilot and air traffic controllers indicated confusion over which direction the plane should land. In the recording posted by air traffic monitoring website liveatc.net, conversation veers repeatedly about whether the pilot should land from the south or the north. Just before landing, the pilot asks: Are we cleared to land? Moments later, the controller comes back on, using a tone rarely heard in such conversations, perhaps even panic, and tells the pilot: I say again, turn! Seconds later, the controller orders fire trucks onto the runway. Zhao Ruinan, Xinhua and AP contributed to this story.
