The Hai Van Tunnel, connecting Da Nang and Thua Thien-Hue Province, will be closed for 30 minutes every day starting from 11 July, said the Vietnamese Ministry of Transport (MoT).

The tunnel will be closed from 1.15pm to 1.45pm every day while construction units use dynamite to widen to 2 lanes the over 6.2 km-long former single-lane emergency tunnel which lies parallel to the existing 2-lane Hai Van Tunnel. 

Vehicles passing through the existing main tunnel (now referred to as the Hai Van Tunnel 1) around closing time will be stopped at 2 toll stations on the northern and southern access roads.

The closing will be effective within a month from the starting date of construction and applicable on all days except for weekends and holidays.

After one month, the project’s management board and investors will collaborate with relevant agencies to evaluate the initial construction process of the new tunnel, called the Hai Van Tunnel 2, report it to MoT and ask for permission to carry out mass construction.

The Directorate for Roads of Viet Nam has requested concerned road management departments to collaborate with the project’s management board and investors to direct traffic and announce whether the tunnel is open for travellers.

The Deo Ca Investment JSC from Viet Nam, which is now headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, is the project’s developer.  The nearly 7,300 billion VND project is being financed on the build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis, and the new tunnel is expected to come into use in 2019.

(Source: VNS/ DA NANG Today)