Qingdao completes country's first prefab metro station

China's first fully prefabricated metro station, with entirely precast main structures, internal structural beams, slabs and columns, completed assembly on Wednesday in Qingdao, Shandong province, for the coastal city's metro line 6 due to open by the end of 2024.

The first phase of Qingdao Metro Line 6, 30.47 kilometers long with 21 stations, is financed by the Qingdao Metro Group and is being built by the State-owned China Railway No 4 Engineering Group Co Ltd (CREC4). The completion took place at Keleshi Station.

More than 30 construction workers spent six months assembling the 23,000-metric-ton metro station in a process similar to "putting building blocks together", according to Qingdao Metro Group.

Different from traditional construction modes, all components of a prefabricated metro station are produced and processed in a special factory, while excavation work at the site of the station goes on simultaneously.

Wang Kaifa, director of the CREC4 project, said the new technology can save four to six months and cut the number of workers required by 80 percent.

It can also save 800 metric tons of steel and 800 cubic meters of wood and reduce construction waste by 60 percent, slashing carbon emissions by 20 percent.