PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP) - Voters overwhelmingly approved the largest modernization plan in the 92-year history of the Panama Canal on Sunday, backing a multi-billion dollar expansion that will allow the world's largest ships to squeeze through the shortcut between the seas.More than 78 percent of Panamanians voted in favor of the expansion with 94 percent of polling stations counted by the country's electoral tribunal. Almost 57 percent of the country's more than 2.1 million voters did not turn out. Thousands of supporters in green ``Yes'' T-shirts cast ballots endorsing the $5.25 billion overhaul which would allow the canal to handle modern container ships, cruise liners and tankers that are too large for its current 108-foot-wide locks. The plan is to build a third set of locks on the Pacific and Atlantic ends by 2015.
The Panama Canal Authority, the autonomous government agency that runs the canal, says the project will double capacity of a waterway already on pace to generate about $1.4 billion this year. Expansion will be paid for by increasing tolls and take in more than $6 billion annually in revenue by 2025.