Salang tunnel

The Salang tunnel is a link between northern and southern Afghanistan crossing the Hindukush mountain range.

Overview

The tunnel represents the major north-south connection in Afghanistan, cutting travel from 72 hours to 10 hours and saving about 300 km. It reaches an altitude of about 3,400 m and is 2.6 km long. The width and height of the tunnel tube are 7 m. About 1000 vehicles pass through the tunnel daily.

In 1955 Afghanistan and the Soviet Union signed an agreement to initiate joint development of the Salang road, initially via the historic Salang mountain pass route. The tunnel was opened in 1964 and provided a year-round connection from the North and the Soviet Union to Kabul. The tunnel was the highest road tunnel in the world until 1973, when the United States built the Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel — just slightly higher and slightly longer — in the Rocky Mountains. (Another higher tunnel in Tajikistan remains incomplete.)

Accidents

Fire

During the Soviet-Afghan war, the tunnel was a crucial military link to the South yet prone to ambushes by the mujaheddin. On November 3, 1982 the Salang tunnel fire killed 64 soviet soldiers and 112 afghans, apparently after a collision, a tanker truck blew up in the tunnel and the fire engulfed a military convoy. Other sources offer some variation in the number of fatalities; for example the Guinness Book of World Records 2007 cites a figure of "about 176".After the 1989 Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, maintenance suffered, and eventually, in the course of combat between the Afghan Northern Alliance and the Taliban in 1997-1998, the tunnel's entrances and ventilation system were destroyed, so that it could only be crossed by foot in the dark. After the defeat of the Taliban, a joint effort between agencies from Afghanistan, the United States, Russia, France and others cleared the mines and debris and reopened the tunnel on January 19, 2002.

Avalanche

Several weeks after reopening several hundred people got trapped in the tunnel due to an avalanche at its southern end. While most people got rescued, fatalities occurred due to asphyxiation and freezing. After further rehabilitation, in July 2004, the tunnel was able to carry bidirectional traffic.

References

* [http://home.no.net/lotsberg/data/highest.html World's highest road tunnels]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/1718459.stm Resurrection for Afghan tunnel] - BBC
* [http://www.usaid.gov/stories/afghanistan/ba_afghan4.html Rebuilding Afghanistan: Opening the Salang Tunnel] - from the United States Agency for International Development
* [http://www.operations.mod.uk/fingal/photo_gallery_tunnel.htm Photos of Salang Tunnel avalanche]
* [http://home.no.net/lotsberg/data/afghanistan/salang.html Photos of road to Salang Tunnel]