Originally published on October 29, 2013
Turkey has opened the Marmaray tunnel, a 3-billion-euro underwater rail tunnel under the Bosphorus Strait that connects Europe and Asia, the two continents spanned by Turkey.
The opening of the tunnel coincides with the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic and was presided over by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The tunnel is 13.6 km long and is buried 60 m beneath the seabed of the Bosphorus Strait, setting a world record for the deepest tunnel, according to Turkish government officials.
It is part of a 76 km underground railway project known as the Marmaray line. The tunnel allows access to both the Asian and European sides of the city via the metro system.
The railway tunnel took nine years to build. In the first phase of the project, steel-lined pre-cast concrete sections were laid and buried into a trench dug into the sea bed. Then 12.2 km of tunnel was bored into the nearby landmass to make a passage through the strait.
Around 40,000 objects, including a graveyard of Byzantine ships, were unearthed while digging the underwater trenches.
Japan's Bank for International Cooperation contributed 735 million euros to finance the project. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was also present at the official opening of the tunnel.
The tunnel was first conceived of more than 150 years ago by Ottoman sultan Abdoul Medjid. Its construction finally began in 2004 under Erdogan, then the mayor of Istanbul.
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