By DPA
Panama City : Panamanian President Martin Torrijos detonated on Monday an explosive charge to break ground on an expansion of the Panama Canal, beginning an eight-year project to double the transport capacity of the historic 80 km thoroughfare.
More than 40,000 people including former US president Jimmy Carter and several Latin American presidents watched as Torrijos detonated a first charge of 13,636 km of explosives.
OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza and presidents Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, Elias Saca of El Salvador, Manuel Zelaya of Honduras and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua were present, as was US Senator Robert Byrd, whose vote was key for the approval of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which led to the Canal being handed over to Panama.
Carter, 82, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, noted that the treaties have become a symbol for global conflict resolution.
He praised Panama’s management of the Canal since it obtained control of the waterway from the US in late 1999, and noted that the expansion would hardly have been possible if any other country controlled the Canal.
Panamanian President Torrijos – the son of late Panamanian strongman Omar Torrijos, who signed the treaties with Carter – stressed the importance of Panamanian control of the canal.
“The student rebellions and the life of every martyr who fought for this moment were worth while,” Torrijos said.
The Panamanian president’s speech in Paraiso was interrupted for a few minutes by the sound of a ship that was travelling through the canal. Torrijos waited and waved.
Colourful balloons were set aloft and many waved flags and shouted patriotic slogans as Torrijos detonated the first charge for the expansion – in an area where years ago signs of “No trespassing” alerted Panamanians against entering the canal zone.
The canal is the only central passage for ships between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and Panamanian voters approved an expansion of the waterway by nearly 80 percent last year.
The Panama Canal is one of the most ambitious engineering projects in history, and the first major expansion in its 92-year existence will see a new set of locks added to the existing two, allowing two-way traffic through the canal, accommodating larger ships and almost doubling the tonnage that can be carried through.
The construction is projected to cost around $5.25 billion and is scheduled for completion by 2015.
Between 13,000 and 14,000 ships pass through the canal each year.
The Torrijos government favoured the expansion, but critics have questioned the impact a larger canal will have on the poor, who number more than 40 percent of the country’s 3.1 million people. They say most of the financial benefit of an expansion would not filter down to that level.
The Panama Canal was opened in 1914 by the US, after 10 years of construction that cost thousands of lives.
An engineering milestone, it was welcomed by ships previously forced to take the arduous route past Cape Horn, the southern tip of South America. Operated by the US for more than 85 years – a condition for US support of Panamanian independence from Colombia – Panama regained control of the passage on Dec 31, 1999.
The exports of countries such as Chile and Ecuador rely heavily on the waterway. An upswing in trade between the US and China in the last few years has also prompted greater demand for passage.