Although the canal was the world's most astounding engineering feat when it was completed in 1914, it has had to be maintained ever since its inauguration. This was due more to its location than poor engineering - the concrete chambers built in 1909 were still in perfect condition 65 years later. The canal is continually renovated and overhauled, and since it was first built, has also been widened from 300 feet to 500 feet to make way for larger ships. There have been plans to reconstruct the canal as a sea-level type (originally planned by de Lesseps) formulated by the Japanese, Americans and Panamanians which would make it less vulnerable and involve less maintenance. It would, however, take between five and 20 years to build at a cost of some $2.3 billion.
