Three Gorges Hub sees over 75 million tons of cargo in H1

By Tan Maolin, Yichang Three Gorges International Communication Studio

In the first half of 2024, a total of 20,643 ships passed through the Three Gorges Hub, carrying more than 75 million tonnes of cargo.

During this period, the Three Gorges locks carried a total of 17,904 ships, with a throughput of 71.89 million tons. The Three Gorges ship lift carried a total of 2,739 ships, with a throughput of 3.36 million tons, an increase of 31 percent year-on-year.

The Three Gorges ship lift began trial operations in 2016, forming a joint navigation pass with the Three Gorges locks. Since then, large ships have been able to "climb the stairs,” and small ships to "take the elevator,” referring to the two ship lifting methods at the Three Gorges hub.
 

The navigation channel of the Three Gorges ship lift is about 7,300 meters long. The lift can climb as high as 113 meters. Its operational compartments are 120 meters long and 18 meters wide, and the lifting weight reaches 15,500 tonnes, enough to quickly lift a 3,000-tonne ship over the dam. Up to now, it is the largest ship lift in the world in terms of construction scale and technical difficulty. By using the lift, ships can “climb over” the dam in just 40 minutes, compared to about 3 hours via the ship locks.