Construction workers have begun installing the final rail section of Ho Chi Minh City’s first-ever metro route.

The installation of the last rail section of metro line No. 1 started on November 9, according to the city’s Management Authority for Urban Railway (MAUR) – the project developer.

The section includes two underground tracks that run parallel to each other and measure 660 meters long and 1.4 meters wide each.

It connects Ben Thanh Terminal with Municipal Theater Station in District 1.

As of Thursday, approximately 400 construction workers had arrived at the construction site to begin installing the tracks.

Vu Hoang Hai, chief engineer at Ben Thanh Terminal, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that 95 percent of the workers had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or had recovered from the respiratory disease.

The rest have been jabbed once and are tested for the novel coronavirus every week, Hai added.

About 88 percent of metro line No. 1 has been completed, the MAUR stated, adding that all units are exerting full efforts to finish 91 percent of the project by the end of the year.

The metro line No. 1 project, also known as the Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien route, runs from Ben Thanh Market in District 1 to the Long Binh Depot in Thu Duc City and is 19.7km long, including a 2.6km underground section and a 17.1km elevated railway.

The project costs more than VND43.7 trillion (US$1.9 billion), most of which has come from Japan's official development assistance (ODA).

The metro line has a total of 17 trains with a combined 51 carriages.

The maximum speed of the trains is 110 kilometers per hour along the elevated spans and 80 kilometers along the underground sections.

Construction started in August 2012 and was previously expected to be completed by the end of this year.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has posed a lot of difficulties to the arrival of experts and import of equipment, which has slowed down the process.

A recent assessment by the MAUR and contractors showed that the project is expected to be finished in late 2023 or early 2024.

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