1915 Canakkale Bridge to be inaugurated on March 18

By Sinan Balcikoca

CANAKKALE, Turkiye (AA) - The 1915 Canakkale Bridge, described as the "necklace of the Çanakkale Strait" will be inaugurated Friday by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the 107th anniversary of the Canakkale Naval Victory.

It will become the world's longest mid-span suspension bridge with its unique structural characteristics, colors and other features.

Besides the staff of Turkiye's Transport and Infrastructure Ministry's General Directorate of Highways, nearly 5,100 workers and 740 construction equipment were involved in the construction of the bridge that connects the Asian and European continents for the first time in the Dardanelles.

A total of 516,863 saplings were planted around the bridge as part of landscaping efforts.

Four cannonball figures, each weighing 75 tons and 20.5 meters (67 feet) high, will be placed on the top of four towers, symbolizing the cannonball that Corp. Seyit Ali Cubuk (Onbasi), one of the heroes of the Canakkale War on Gallipoli Peninsula, carried on his back.

An artilleryman responsible for loading cannons, Seyit is famous for single-handedly lifting a shell of more than 250 kilograms (550 pounds) into the cannon barrel when the automatic loading crane failed.

Loading one, two, then three shells on his back to be fired at invading ships, it was Seyit who sunk the British flagship HMS Ocean.

With the Malkara-Canakkale Highway and the 1915 Canakkale Bridge, the ports, railway and air transportation systems in the Marmara and Aegean regions will be integrated with land transportation projects, enabling economic development and the creation of a balanced planning and structuring required by the industry in the regions.

The 2,023-meter (1.25 miles) mid-span of the bridge symbolizes the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Turkiye, while its 318-meter (1,043 feet) steel towers symbolize March 18, 1915, the Canakkale Naval Victory.

The project, in which the red-white towers represent the Turkish flag, has the title of suspension bridge with the highest towers in the world, with a tower height of 334 meters (1,095.8 feet).

* Writing by Jeyhun Aliyev