Recently, the left tube of the entrance of Yinghuagu No. 2 Tunnel on the Xichang-Xiangcheng Expressway was successfully excavated, laying a solid foundation for completing the Xichang Branch Line opening task on schedule.

The entrance of Yinghuagu No. 2 Tunnel is located in Minzhu Village, Hainan Subdistrict, Xichang City. The left line of the tunnel is 4,262 meters long and the right line is 4,180 meters long; it is a separated double-tube extra-long tunnel. As a controlling project of the Xichang Branch Line of the Xichang-Xiangcheng Expressway, the entrance of Yinghuagu No. 2 Tunnel is located in the *** Scenic and Historic Area and the Qionghai secondary drinking water protection zone, where the environment is highly sensitive. In addition, the tunnel passes through an active fault zone, with broken surrounding rock, steep terrain, great construction difficulty and high safety risk.

To ensure the smooth excavation of the tunnel, the existing road was widened to resolve the environmental access issue for the access road; a steel trestle was adopted to resolve the impact of the access road on the drinking water source; anti-slide piles plus lightweight concrete were used to build the portal construction platform and anchor cable frame beam protection, resolving the stability problem of the unloading rock mass; and a special design was made for tunnel water inflow treatment. After treatment, the water inflow is used for forest irrigation and forest fire prevention, ensuring that "not a single drop of sewage flows into Qionghai."

It is reported that the Xichang-Xiangcheng Expressway has a total length of 233.1 kilometers, of which the Xichang Branch Line is 38.115 kilometers long and connects the G5 Beijing-Kunming Expressway and the soon-to-be-completed Xichang-Zhaotong Expressway. The main works of the Xichang Branch Line include 8 tunnels, 6 bridges and 5 interchanges, with a bridge-tunnel ratio of 74.3%. The controlling projects are three extra-long tunnels: Sujiashan Tunnel, Yinghuagu No. 2 Tunnel and Hainan Tunnel, among which Yinghuagu No. 2 Tunnel has the longest construction period on the Xichang Branch Line.

The Xichang-Xiangcheng Expressway is an important section of the Greater Shangri-La tourism loop and an important corridor for the Panxi Economic Zone to conveniently communicate with neighboring provinces. Once completed, it will play an important role in the economic development of Xichang and in improving the expressway transportation network.