ABOUT ROAD BRIDGE ACROSS TUMANGAN RIVER (PERSONAL VIEW ON PROSPECTS OF CONSTRUCTION)

Nikolai I. Pereslavtsev  

Admiral Nevelskoy Maritime State University, Vladivostok  

Abstract: The author presents a personal view on the history, current situation and prospects to implement joint project of construction road bridge across Tumangan River on the border between Russia and North Korea. This bridge is planned to complement the existing since 1959 railway one. The technical characteristics of the proposed bridge have been studied, and the economic and technical issues that need to be resolved in connection with the project have been identified.  Describing these problems, the author formulates his private opinions about the purpose and possibilities of the project.

Keywords:  road bridge, Tumangan, DPRK, access routes, dredging

The probability to construct a road bridge across Tumangan River has been discussed for quite a long time, at least 20 years, including at the highest level. Meetings of intergovernmental commissions on trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation were being held, and ministers negotiated. For instance, Russian Minister for the Far East and the Arctic A.Kozlov visited Pyongyang on this occasion [2].

Both partners have considered the idea positively: let us construct the road bridge across Tumangan, in addition to the existing railway one. Railway bridge exists since 1959, has a length of almost 1 km, capacity – about 5 million ton per year. But its height is only 7 m, this is not sufficient for large vessels (only vessels with capacity up to 300 ton can pass under it [1]. 

Finally, in June 2024 Russian President and North Korean Leader have signed in Pyongyang bilateral agreement about construction of border road bridge [1]. Needless to say that Russia has promised to construct the bridge according to Russian technical standards and at her own expense too. As for total cost of works it is estimated about 100 million dollars [1]. For comparison: the implementation of Khasan – Rajin railway project cost, at the prices of that time, about 300 million dollars.  

Russian Ministry for the Far East and the Arctic has prepared the Feasibility Study (FS). According to the project’s FS, length of the bridge is planned to be 830 m (300 m – from Russian river bank, 530 m – from North Korean river bank), with metal bridge spans (that is, presumably, metal girder bridge, pic.2), two-way traffic. Width of the roadway – 10 m.  To construct the road bridge there has been selected a location 415 m downstream from the current railway bridge.  

Now about the points that raise questions. We would like to emphasize once more – this is only an expert’s personal opinion.  

1. The height of the road bridge spans (between the bottom of the bridge spans and the river estimated navigable level) is still out of public access. There are reasons to expect that it (the height of the spans) will not be very big. On the first stage of calculations there were even talks about construction of pontoon or low-level (in order to reduce the cost) bridge. The depth of Tumangan in the mouth area does not exceed 3.5 m [1], therefore for the passage of larger vessels under the railway bridge (at least 10 m) dredging may be needed. Who, at whose expense, and on what legal basis will be engaged in these works?

There were suggestions to involve the Chinese, but then it would be necessary to change the status of the object, to turn it into a trilateral one. However, neither Moscow, nor Pyongyang made any assumptions or offers about that. 

(End of introductory fragment)