Page "Panama Canal" Paragraph 7

On September 3, 2007, thousands of Panamanians stood across from Paraíso Hill in Panama to witness a huge initial explosion and launch of the Expansion Program.

The first phase of the project will be dry excavations of the 218 meter ( 715 ft ) wide trench connecting the Gaillard Cut with the Pacific coast, removing 47 million cubic meters of earth and rock.

By June 2012, a hundred-foot-tall reinforced concrete monolith had been completed, the first of 46 such monoliths which will line the new Pacific-side lock walls.

By early July of 2012, however, it was announced that the canal expansion project had fallen six months behind schedule, leading the expansion to open in April 2015 rather than October 2014, as originally planned.