The day the longest railway tunnel was opened – level 2

01-06-2001

The longest railway tunnel in the world is in Switzerland. Its name is the Gotthard Base Tunnel and it runs under the Alps. The tunnel is 57 kilometers long.

The construction of the tunnel began in November 1999 and took over 16 years to complete. It cost over $10 billion to build.

Over 2,500 workers built the tunnel. They had to remove out 28 million tons of rock. They used drilling and explosives to make a big hole through the hard rock of the Alps.

The Gotthard Base Tunnel is not only the longest railway tunnel in the world, but it is also one of the deepest. It runs 2.3 kilometers below the surface of the mountains.

The tunnel was officially opened on 1 June 2016.

Difficult words: drilling (making a hole with a drill), explosive (a material which can create an explosion), surface (the top part of water or land).

What other records does the Gotthard Base Tunnel hold?

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