Giant lock gates for Panama Canal expansion unloaded

IT TOOK some two hours to unload each of the four lock gates that will become part of the biggest locks in the world  when the expansion of the Panama Canal is completed.

The gates, which arrived Tuesday, August 20, took 30 days to travel from Trieste in Italy. The ship that carryiied them is on its way back to Italy to continue ferrying the remaining 12 gates. Each one is 30 meters high and 10 meters wide.

To unload each one,  at a specially constructed dock. took four flatbeds each with 120 wheels.
The 16 gates that will allow the passage of post panamax ships that currently have to make the long voyage around the Horn, will be in place by April 2014.