YICHANG — More than 220,000 tons of cargo have been carried by the world's largest shiplift at the Yangtze River's Three Gorges Dam in Central China's Hubei province since September, China Three Gorges Corp announced Tuesday.

A total of 886 ships, carrying 220,415 tons of cargo and more than 7,900 passengers have passed through the dam's ship lock via the shiplift between September last year and mid-March.

The shiplift has reduced the average time to pass the dam from more than three hours to just one hour, according to the company.

The shiplift, the largest and most sophisticated of its kind in the world, features a ship-chamber, which has a container that is 120-meters long, 18-meters wide and 3.5-meters deep.

It is designed to transport small and medium-sized ships, with a maximum displacement of about 3,000 tons.