Cable-stayed bridge on Sea Link longest in India

The main span of the cable-stayed portion of the Bandra-Worli sea link measuring 500 meters is the largest in India superseding Vidyasagar Setu in Kolkata and shares the 20th spot with Thailand's Kanchanaphisek Bridge among the bridges with the longest span in the world.

The Sutong Bridge over the Yangtze River in China, opened June last year, has the largest span of any cable-stayed bridge at 1,088 meters. Hong Kong's Stonecutters Bridge has the second longest span at 1,018 meters and with 890 meter the Tatara Bridge in Japan is the third longest.

Main span is the distance between the suspension towers and is the most common way to rank cable-stayed bridges.
    
The 5.6-km-long sea link has two cable-stayed bridges- Bandra channel with 50m-250m-250m-50m pan arrangement and the Worli channel with 50m-50m-150m-50m-50m.

Both sides of the bridges are flanked by 50m conventional approach spans, which are not considered as the main span.
    
The Vidyasagar Setu has 457.2 m main span and it was so far the largest in India. The Naini Bridge over the Yamuna is also a cable-stayed one.

The bridge, to be opened by Congress president Sonia Gandhi on June 30, is 63 times the height of Qutub Minar and has consumed 90,000 tonnes of cement, which would suffice to make five buildings of 10-storey each, a Mumbai State Roadways Development Corporation official said.

France's Pont de Normandie Bridge with 856 m span is the fourth longest cable-stayed bridge in the world and the remaining six in the top-10 bracket are all in China. The Xupu Bridge in Shanghai with 590m is the tenth longest cable-stayed bridge in the world.

The 11th, 14th, 16th and the 17th among the top-20 also belong to China.
    
Japan's Meiko-Chuo (590m), Greece's Rio-Antirio, Norway's Skarnsund (530m) and Japan's Tsurumi Tsubasa (510m) ranks at the 12th, 13th, 15th and 18th spot respectively.

The Bandra-Worli sea link, seen as an engineering marvel, weighs equivalent to that of 50,000 African elephants and steel wire used is equivalent to the circumference of the earth.
    
The cost of illumination of the bridge would be Rs nine crore and the height of the cable-stayed tower is equal to a 43-storey building.