The longest Saint-Gotthard tunnel in the world put into operation. This event will go down in history!

The beginning of this month in Switzerland was marked by the inauguration of the Saint-Gotthard Base Tunnel, which became the longest in the whole world. The object passes through the thickness of the Alps at a depth of over two kilometers and has a length of 57 kilometers. Thanks to the commissioning of this tunnel, the shortest route from the south of Switzerland to the northern part of Italy appeared.

The opening ceremony was attended not only by members of the Government and Parliament of Switzerland, but also by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande.

Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann announced the construction of the St. Gotthard Tunnel construction century.

For a long 17 years, the construction of the Saint-Gotthard Tunnel lasted, which cost Switzerland about 11 billion euros.

They began drilling the mountain massif in 1999, and in 2003 tunneling machines were launched.

In 2010, the Sissy tunneling boring machine cut through the last centimeters of the rock. At the same time, she deviated from the given route only eight centimeters in width and only a centimeter in height.

The next step was laying the canvas for high-speed trains. The workers installed 300 kilometers of rails and laid 380 thousand reinforced concrete sleepers.

2600 people worked at the construction site, 9 of them died due to accidents. The work took place around the clock and did not stop even for a day.

Of course, in the process, engineers had to deal with many difficulties, one of which was too high a temperature reaching 45 ° C, which is associated with a record depth of construction work, which in some places exceeded the mark of 2 thousand meters. However, all issues were resolved competently and on time.