A promotional video about Bridge of the Horns and Noor City in Yemen and Djibouti.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
This bridge would link the Arabian Peninsula to the Horn of Africa across the Red Sea strait Bab-el Mandeb which leads into the Gulf of Aden. The bridge will be approximately 29 km or 18 miles long
The contractor is Noor City Development Coporation based in Dubai. The notice to proceed has been issued by Middle East Developmen LLC headed by Tarek bin Laden.
Total cost for the project is estimaed to be around 20 billion U.S. Projected opening date is 2020.
The proposed bridge will have the longest suspension span in the world of 5 km or 3.1 miles. Very large ships must have room to traverse the straits in both directions. On the Yemen side the bridge will first reach the island of Perm before continuing to the mainland in north eastern Djibouti. Dubai investors already lease the port in the capital city of Djibouti.
THe bridge will also carry rail traffic. It is estimated that the bridge will carry about 100,000 cars and 50,000 rail passengers a day.
Twin cities called Al Noor City are to be built on either end of the bridge. From what I can see on the maps both appear to be in the middle of nowhere! An appended video speaks of these cities in glowing terms which is appropriate I suppose since Al Noor City means city of light. These cities are projected to run on renewable energy.
In Djibouti President Ismael Omar Guelleh has granted 500 km2 (193 sq miles) to build Noor City, the first of the hundreds of Cities of Light the Saudi Binladen Group envisions building. Guelleh is the president that protesters are attempting to remove at present. Developers expect Noor City in Djibouti to have 2.5 million inhabitants by 2025. They expect the twin city in Yemen to have 4.5 million people.
There are further grandiose plans for a huge airport and a road linking the Yemen Noor City to Dubai. The Economist magazine noted:"Africans may wonder why the hub is not being built in a bit of Africa where more Africans live and which has food and water." Certainly Djibouti and Yemen both could benefit from economic development however. Djibouti at present depends heavily upon international aid and U.S. and French military bases.
Source: AllVoices