World's longest tunnel hailed as green triumph
The world's longest tunnel will be created today when a massive drilling machine breaks through the last few inches of rock beneath the Swiss Alps.
The 35.4-mile Gotthard Base rail tunnel is being hailed as an environmental triumph as much as an unprecedented engineering feat.
The 7 billion hole through the Gotthard massif, including the 8,200-foot Piz Vatgira, along the route to Italy is part of a larger project to shift goods from road to rail. Some 1.2 million trucks currently thunder through Switzerland's countryside every year, harming rare plants and animals.