On June 18, the Dabie Mountains Tunnel on the Hefei–Wuhan section of the Shanghai–Chongqing–Chengdu High-Speed Railway (the He-Wu High-Speed Railway) entered main-tunnel construction. As the longest tunnel on the entire line and a controlling project, this marks a solid step forward in the project's construction.

The Dabie Mountains Tunnel has a total length of 14,698 meters. It is constructed and managed by Yangtze River Coastal Railway Group Co., Ltd., designed by China Railway Siyuan Survey and Design Group (CRSRI), and built by China Railway 18th Bureau Group. The tunnel's geological conditions are complex, passing through multiple fault fracture zones and other unfavorable geology; the terrain is rugged and complex, with many cliffs and steep slopes, making construction highly difficult.

The Dabie Mountains Tunnel connects Hubei and Anhui provinces, passing successively through many sensitive areas including the Shizifeng Provincial Forest Park and Shizifeng Provincial Nature Reserve in Hubei, as well as the Tianma*** Nature Reserve and the Giant Salamander Provincial Nature Reserve in Anhui. In view of the excellent natural environment of the Dabie Mountains area, the design team fully demonstrated in the preliminary environmental impact assessment report and adopted measures such as reducing inclined-shaft exits and adding sewage pump stations to minimize the tunnel construction's impact on the environment.

In response to unfavorable geological conditions in the Dabie Mountains Tunnel such as high ground stress, high and low temperatures, harmful gases, and dangerous rockfall, the construction team of China Railway 18th Bureau Group adopted corresponding engineering measures. Since entering the site, they have successively completed the relocation of the road above the tunnel, the construction of access roads, the excavation and construction of the tunnel portal site, the construction of portal anchor-pile protection works, and the installation of pollution-discharge facilities, laying a solid foundation for the tunnel to enter main-tunnel construction.

According to reports, the Hefei–Wuhan section of the Shanghai–Chongqing–Chengdu High-Speed Railway has a total length of 330.1 kilometers and a design speed of 350 kilometers per hour. The line starts at Hefei South Station in Anhui Province in the east, passes through Lu'an North, Jinzhai East, Nanxi, Macheng North, Hong'an, and Yangtze River New Area, and ends at Wuhan Tianhe Station, with a bridge-to-tunnel ratio as high as 88.6%. After the project is completed, travel time between Wuhan and Hefei is expected to be reduced from the current roughly 2 hours to about 1 hour.