At 10:38 on May 21, with a loud blast, after 17 months of hard work, the Lushan Tunnel, one of the three major control projects of the Huzhou-Hangzhou Railway, was successfully holed through, marking major progress in the construction of the Huzhou-Hangzhou Railway and an important step toward the project's goal of opening to traffic before the 2022 Asian Games.

The Huzhou-Hangzhou Railway, a key supporting project for the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games and an important node project of the "Yangtze River Delta on Rails," starts from the existing Huzhou Station on the Nanjing-Hangzhou high-speed railway and passes through Nan Taihu New Area, Wuxing District and Deqing County in Huzhou City, and Yuhang District, Xihu District, Fuyang District and Tonglu County in Hangzhou City. After crossing the Fuchun River, it establishes the new Tonglu East Station and then connects to Tonglu Station on the Hangzhou-Huangshan high-speed railway. The line is designed for a speed of 350 kilometers per hour and has six stations: Huzhou, Deqing, Hangzhou West, Fuyang West, Tonglu and Tonglu East. Among them, Huzhou Station and Tonglu Station are existing stations, Deqing Station is an existing station being renovated, and Hangzhou West Station, Fuyang West Station and Tonglu East Station are newly built stations. The newly built line is about 136 kilometers long and includes 33 tunnels with a total length of 41.4 kilometers.

The Lushan Tunnel holed through this time is located in Fuyang District, Hangzhou City. It has a total length of 5,605.03 meters and an investment of 361 million yuan, with eight working faces under simultaneous construction. The tunnel lies in the hilly terrain of eastern Zhejiang, with a maximum altitude of about 385 meters and a maximum burial depth of about 280 meters. The geological structure is complex and there are many risk sources, making it the only Grade I high-risk long and large tunnel on the entire line. In response to the complex geological conditions of the tunnel, Huzhou-Hangzhou Railway Co., Ltd., Hangzhou-Huangshan Railway (Shanghai-Kunming Passenger Dedicated Line Zhejiang) Company and China Railway 12th Bureau Group strengthened technical research, introduced new construction methods, new processes, new materials and new equipment, and overcame construction difficulties such as most of the tunnel being close to the ground surface, easy water inrush during deep excavation, and proximity to existing highway and railway tunnels, achieving safe, high-quality and efficient construction under complex geological conditions.

As a national key project and a key supporting project for the Hangzhou Asian Games, the Huzhou-Hangzhou Railway is invested under the leadership of Zhejiang Provincial Communications Group. This high-speed railway is important infrastructure for optimizing the layout of passenger stations and river-crossing channels in the Hangzhou railway hub and enhancing the hub's status and capacity. Together with the Hangzhou-Huangshan high-speed railway and the planned Shanghai-Suzhou-Huzhou, Shanghai-Zhapu-Hangzhou, Quzhou-Jianyang, Hangzhou-Lin'an-Jixi and Nanchang-Jingdezhen-Huangshan railways, it will form an important auxiliary corridor on the Shanghai-Kunming corridor east of Nanchang. It will also effectively connect with the Hangzhou-Wenzhou railway to form the southward extension corridor of the Shangqiu-Hefei-Hangzhou and Nanjing-Hangzhou high-speed railways in the main framework of the national high-speed railway network.

Up to now, the project has completed a cumulative investment of 19 billion yuan, accounting for 51 percent of the total investment. The cumulative progress of subgrade works is 75.6 percent, bridge works 76.1 percent and tunnel works 94.1 percent. It is expected to be ready for track laying in December this year and to be put into operation before the 2022 Asian Games.