The World's LongestBridge

Rumor has it that alegendaiy six-headed monster lurks in the deep waters of the Tyrrhenian Seabetween Italy arid the island of Sicily.______(46)When completed in

2010,the world'slongest bridge will weigh nearly 300,000 tons-equivalent to the iceberg thatsank the Titanic-and stretch 5 kilometers long."Tha.t's nearly 50 percentlonger

than any otherbridge ever built."says structural engineer Shane Rixon.

_______(47)They'resuspension bridges,massive structures built to span vast water channels orgorges.A suspension bridge needs just two towers to shoulder the structure's

mammothweight,thanks to hefty supporting cables slung between the towers and anchoredfirmly in deep pools of cement at each end of the bridge.The Messina Strait

Bridge will have two54,100-ton towers,which will support most of the bridge's load.The beefy cablesof the bridge,each 2 meter in diameter,will hold up the longest and

widest bridge deckever built.

When constructionbegins on the Messina Strait Bridgein 2005,the first job will be to erect two 370 meter-tail steeltowers.______(48)Getting these cables up will be

something.It's notjust their length-totally 5.3 kilorneters-but their weight.______(49)

After loweringvertical"suspender"cables from the main cables,builders will erect a60 meter-wide 54,630-ton steel roadway,or deck-wide enough to accommodate 12lanes

of traffic.Thedeck's weight will pull down on the cables with a force of 70 ,500 tons.Inreturn,the cables yank up against their firmly rooted anchors with a force of139,000

tons-equivalent tothe weight of about 100,000 cars.Those anchors are essential. _______(50)______(49)

A.Someenvironmentalists are against the project on biological grounds.

B.What do theworld's longest bridges have in common?

C.If true,one dayyou might spy the beast while zipping（呼啸而过）across the Messina Strait Bridge.

D.They're what willkeep the bridge from going anywhere.

E.The second jobwill be to pull two sets of steel cables across the strait,each set being abundle of 44,352 individual steel wires.