NANJING, March 13 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese-built dredging vessel, the largest of its kind in Asia has been put into operation on Tuesday as it set sail from the port of Lianyungang, a coastal city in east China's Jiangsu Province, local customs said.

With a total installed capacity of 25,843 kilowatts, the 140-meter-long and 27.8-meter-wide vessel can dig as deep as 35 meters under the sea floor and dredge 6,000 cubic meters per hour. Rated power of the rimer is 6,600 kilowatts.

Invested by China Communications Construction Co., Ltd and designed by China State Shipbuilding Co., Ltd, the vessel is the most state-of-the-art cutter suction dredger in Asia and the most intelligent hopper dredger in the world.

The dredger has carried out a mud-dredging trial off the coast of the city of Qidong in Jiangsu last October, completed a bedrock-digging test near the coastal city of Dalian, and succeeded in digging rocks with a hardness of 60 MPa. Enditem