Posted on February 25, 2026
By David Kinlan
In 1992, one of the most extraordinary civil engineering projects of the modern era began in earnest.
Chek Lap Kok. My first ever tender when I joined Ballast Nedam Dredging in 1991.
An airport built on reclaimed land. Islands blown up and pushed into the sea. Seabed dredged.
Logistics on a scale that still commands respect more than three decades later.
I recently revisited a remarkable documentary titled “Ten Tonnes a Second”— a series of three YouTube videos that capture the early years of the Hong Kong International Airport platform formation.
The title alone says everything: material was being moved at a rate that defied conventional intuition.
Ten tonnes. Every second.
The video is split into 3 five minute videos are can be seen here, here and here.
What stands out in watching the footage today is not just the production rate. It is the orchestration.
Dutch and Belgian dredging contractors, Australian, Japanese, British and American civil contractors, Hong Kong authorities, international consultants and personnel from across the globe came together in 1992 to execute what was, at the time, one of the largest earthmoving and marine works projects ever attempted.
The marine spread alone reads like a who’s who of the dredging industry: cutter suction dredgers, trailing suction hopper dredgers, reclamation spreads operating with precision in often unforgiving conditions.
This was not simply land reclamation.
Chek Lap Kok
It was marine engineering, geotechnics, logistics, contract management and sheer human determination operating at full throttle.
The collaboration between civil engineering contractors and dredging companies demonstrated something our industry sometimes forgets: transformative infrastructure requires alignment of expertise, risk appetite and disciplined execution.
The scale was immense, but so too was the competence of the people delivering it.
My thanks to Jaap de Ruijterfor drawing my attention to these videos. They deserve a far wider audience than being hidden away in the YouTube vault.
For anyone involved in marine works, reclamation, airport platforms or major programme delivery, they are essential viewing.
Chek Lap Kok remains a monument not only to engineering ambition, but to the contractors, crews and project teams who made the improbable routine.
If you work in dredging or major civil infrastructure, take the time to watch Ten Tonnes a Second.
It is a reminder of what coordinated expertise can achieve.
