Early spring brings diligent work, and it is the right time to forge ahead. At the start of the Year of the Snake, the participants of the Jiaozhou Bay Second Tunnel Project have united their efforts, seized opportunities, focused on safety, ensured progress, and strengthened contract performance. With the spirit of "the start is the decisive battle, the beginning is the sprint," they are driving the project construction forward, taking the initiative, and sounding the "assembly call" for resuming work and production. They are advancing reform and innovation, building the Jiaozhou Bay Second Tunnel Project with high quality, and striving to achieve a "good start" in the first quarter. As of now, the land-based drill-and-blast section of the tunnel at the Huangdao end of the Jiaozhou Bay Second Tunnel Project has been fully holed through, and the overall progress of the civil engineering works has exceeded half. In addition, the sea-based drill-and-blast section at the Huangdao end and the shield-driven section at the Qingdao end are both proceeding in an orderly manner according to schedule.

At the construction site of Section TJ-05 of the shield-driven section of the Jiaozhou Bay Second Tunnel Project, 73 meters below sea level, post-95s engineer Zhang Wenjia from China Railway 14th Bureau Group is driving the "Haitian" super-large-diameter shield machine steadily through the vast Jiaozhou Bay. The entire construction site is orderly, overturning everyone's impression of a traditional construction site. The shield machine has an excavation diameter of 15.63 meters, a length of 142 meters, and a total weight of 5,400 tons. The tunnel construction process is highly intelligent, mechanized, and green, accumulating valuable technical experience for China's future sea-crossing operations.

According to Chen Zongkai, shield manager of Section TJ-05, since work resumed in the new year, all participating personnel, under the leadership of the Qingdao Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau and Qingdao Conson Group, have seized the momentum to open a new chapter and forge ahead to write new glories. As of now, more than 200 people in this section have returned to their posts. They have conducted the first safety lesson for resuming work, comprehensively investigated on-site construction hazards, and addressed problems early and on a small scale to prevent trouble before it arises.

Since resuming work, the project has coordinated various resources and actively carried out work according to plans to ensure efficient contract performance. The participating personnel have worked together with one heart to build a quality project and a century-lasting project that satisfies the people of Qingdao. First, they adhere to safety first and quality foremost, strictly implement safety production rules and regulations, standardize construction operations, ensure project safety and quality, and connect key nodes with high quality to lay a solid foundation for the full breakthrough of the tunnel. Second, they optimize construction organization and coordination, continuously improve the level of standardized construction management, allocate excellent and strong resources, and make every effort to advance project construction. Third, they enhance risk prediction and emergency response capabilities. Sea-crossing operations involve complex geology and many fault fracture zones, so risks must be predicted in advance and sea-crossing operations carried out in an orderly manner.

It is reported that the Jiaozhou Bay Second Tunnel, invested and constructed by Qingdao Conson Group, is the second horizontal line of Qingdao's "seven horizontal and nine vertical" high-speed expressway network and also the fourth motor vehicle channel crossing Jiaozhou Bay. Affected by different rock formation conditions and fault zones, the project adopts the combined construction method of "drill-and-blast + shield tunneling." It is currently the world's longest, largest, and most comprehensively difficult submarine road tunnel in terms of construction. Once completed, the tunnel will be of great significance for promoting integrated development around the bay, advancing the "Qingdao-Huangdao same-city" initiative, building an outward-facing bridgehead, and developing a global ocean center city.