With the beginning of the flooding of the Pacific”s set of locks, the enlargement of the Panama Canal is in its final stage since a similar operation was carried out in the Atlantic end on June 10.

The corporation in charge of designing and building the project, Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC), said that they will take water from the Miraflores Lake, which is one level lower than the Gatun Lake, the highest level in the canal.

GUPC Executive Giuseppe Quarta pointed out that the complete flooding and the tests on every lock may take three or four months, and this first stage in the Pacific lock is expected to last about five days.

Unlike the Atlantic locks, where the operation was carried out by gravity, in this case, electrical pumps and diesel belonging to the public company Autoridad del Canal de Panama (ACP) will be use to supply 40,000 cubic meters of water for the initial tests.

At present, the schedule allows assuring that the canal will be operational in April 2016, Jorge Luis Quijano, ACP administrator, told Prensa Latina recently.

Starting on that day, megaships will cross Central America from the Atlantic to the Pacific and vice versa in eight hours, thus changing the world’s food productive chain.

Source: Prensa Latina