Colombia Inaugurates Latin America’s Longest Road Tunnel
HAVANA TIMES – Colombian President Ivan Duque on Friday inaugurated the 8.5-kilometer Tunel de la Linea, billed as Latin America’s longest road tunnel. It passes underneath the Andes’ central mountain range, reports dpa news.
The tunnel linking Cajamarca with Calarca saves drivers about 20 kilometers of travel along a winding road at up to 3,600 metres above sea level. It cuts up to 1.5 hours off the journey from the center of the country to the south-west.
The tunnel took more than a decade to build and cost about 270 million dollars. It now stands as the most important achievement of Colombian engineering.
Duque called it “the dream of an entire country.”
The tunnel will form part of a transport infrastructure including more than 20 other tunnels and about 30 viaducts.
Thousands of lorries carrying 40 per cent of the country’s exports will be using the tunnel on a daily basis.