A crowd, totaling an estimated 30,000, included world leaders in business and government, joined employees of the Panamanian government and the Panama Canal Authority (ACP) in a ceremony and groundbreaking to celebrate the beginning of the first-ever expansion of the nearly 100-year-old waterway.
An explosive ceremony marked the start of a 3.8 billion euro project, which will allow the world's increasingly huge cargo ships to take the short cut between the Atlantic and the Pacific. They are also putting in a couple of bigger locks, doubling the number of ships which will be able to pass through the 80 km canal at any one time. Former US President Jimmy Carter was there to see the work get underway, along with Panama's president Martin Torrijos.
The new work is planned to be ready by 2014, the hundredth anniversary of the canal's opening. The Panama Canal was a marvel of its time when it opened to shipping.
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