China's self-developed tunneling machine ready to be exported to Indonesia

NANJING, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- A supersized shield tunneling machine, developed by a Chinese firm for a high-speed rail project in Indonesia, rolled off the assembly line Saturday in east China's Jiangsu Province.

The machine, with its cutter diameter being as long as 13.19 meters, is about 101 meters long, weighs more than 2,600 tonnes and is the largest of its kind ever to be exported outside of China, according to its manufacturer Tianhe Mechanical Equipment Manufacturing Company based in the city of Changshu.

"We have tailored many advanced technologies based on the geological conditions of Indonesia," said Gao Guanghui, general manager of the company.

The machine will be used for drilling tunnels for the 142-km high-speed rail linking Jakarta, capital of Indonesia, and Bandung, the country's fourth-largest city.

With a designed speed of 350 km per hour, the rail will slash the travel time between the two cities from the current three hours to 40 minutes.