London, Nov 6 : Leaving no stone unturned to make the 2008 Beijing Olympics a memorable one, China is building a giant wheel in the capital that will dwarf the UK’s London Eye and the Singapore Flyer.

The Beijing Great Wheel will stand 208 metres (680ft) – a height chosen to celebrate the 2008 Olympics, which open next August. The London Eye is 135 metres high, the Times reported.

The wheel, work for which started yesterday, is expected to complete by 2009. It will have 48 capsules, each with a capacity for 40 people.

“It’s a new icon for the city,” Stephen Matter, the head of the Singapore-based Great Wheel Corporation, was quoted, as saying.

Brushing off anxieties that smog in Beijing would obscure the view from the wheel, Matter expressed confidence that the Government would continue to rid the skies of pollution in a city where visibility on a bad day can shrink to a few hundred metres.

Meanwhile, Xinhua news agency quoted sources in the Great Wheel Corporation as saying that the landmark was originally scheduled for completion in time for the Olympic Games next year, but was delayed several times to improve its design.

The 99-million-dollar project to construct the wheel, which has a diameter of 193 metres, was designed by the same Dutch company that worked on the London Eye built in 1999. (ANI)