Swiss break through in world’s longest tunnel
Swiss engineers have managed to reach the end of the world’s longest tunnel, after 15 years of construction work.
The 57.1km rail tunnel under the Gotthard massif will enter in service in 2017. The tunnel will connect the northern and southeaster Europe and help ease congestion and pollution in the Swiss Alps.
This is the third tunnel to be built through the St. Gotthard area but it is the longest of the three. This tunnel has beat the Japanese rail link which is the current record holder.
Swiss Transport Minister Moritz Leuenberger has hailed the tunnel as "a spectacular and grandiose monument" which will become a new benchmark. Passengers will ultimately be able to speed from the Italian city of Milan to Zurich in less than three hours and further north into Germany, cutting the journey time by an hour.
The tunnel is estimated to have cost the government the sum of €7 billion and was partly driven by environmental concerns as heavy goods traffic has been blamed for the erosion of Switzerland’s Alpine landscape.
More than 2,000 tunnel workers have been working on the project. Since the work has started 15 years ago, eight workers have died.
