Gotthard tunnel works, above ground 2010 (photo, Alp Transit)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The TV cameras will be whirring away as a group of men shake hands and probably wipe away tears nearly two kilometres below ground, but the event this time is not trapped miners, it’s a celebration as the final bit of Switzerland’s Gotthard base rail tunnel is bored early Friday afternoon. The world’s longest rail tunnel, 57 km, will be pierced early in the afternoon 15 October, the culmination of 17 years of tunneling work.
Drillers from Sedrun in canton Graubuenden will meet those from Faido, Ticino, completing the drilling of 151.4 km in total (roads in both directions and galleries). The workers from Ticino will climb through the manhole once the final boring is done.
TSR will cover it live in French: 6.5 km long fiberglass cables had to be laid to make the live broadcasts possible.
The tunnel itself will not open until 2017, with construction and safety work inside the tunnel remaining a major project.
Once completed, the Gotthard tunnel will be a key part of the European rail system’s transalpine line, linking northern and southern Europe with high-speed trains.
Saint Gervais, France (GenevaLunch) – The 3,000 residents in the French valley of Saint Gervais (map) love their mountains most of the time, with the Alps, including Mont Blanc, making the area a tourist attraction. But nervousness set in, in late July 2010, when a lake with no outlet was discovered under the Tête-Rousse glacier: 65,000m3 of water that could flood the valley. This week, engineers began drilling a hole to drain the lake and avoid a possible catastrophe.
Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The CEO of Geothermal Explorers, the company that was drilling as part of a Basel geothermal energy project called Deep Heat, has been cleared of wrongdoing by a court in the city. Charges were brought against Markus Haering after the company’s drilling appeared to provoke earthquakes in Basel in 2006 and early 2007.
