World’s deepest and longest underwater tunnel to cut European journey by 40 minutes

Detailed summary

The E39 Rogfast will be the world's longest and deepest undersea road tunnel and is intended to cut travel time between major cities ...

Work is underway on a new European road tunnel that will smash several records and cut journey times by 40 minutes.

In the past couple of years, China has really stolen the spotlight for its engineering marvels. The official opening of the world's highest bridge in Guizhou province caused jaws to drop almost as quickly as travel times. The Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge has dramatically cut travel times from two hours to a mere two minutes.

Construction on the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge began in January 2022 and was completed in less than four years. The bold project produced a structure spanning nearly 3km across a canyon known as the "Earth crack".

Although it'll be underground and a little less visually breathtaking, Norwegian civil engineers are next in line to grab the headlines.

The E39 Rogfast will be the world’s longest and deepest undersea road tunnel, intended to cut travel time between major cities. At 27 kilometres (17 miles), it will become a major part of a ferry-free highway along Norway's western coast, linking Nord-Jæren and Haugalandet.

The long tunnel is called Rogfast, which is short for “Rogaland fastforbindelse", after the name of the region it’s in and the Norwegian word for “fixed link.” The tunnel boasts some seriously impressive features. At its deepest, it will be 392 metres (1,286 feet) below sea level, which is a full 83m more than the UK's tallest building, the Shard, is tall.

Such extreme engineering is required because of the fjords, which reach down 400m below sea level. The English Channel, for comparison, averages around 60 metres and reaches a maximum of 174-metres.

The E39 highway runs 1,100-kilometres from Trondheim in the north to Kristiansand in the south. At the moment, drivers have to take nine separate ferry crossings to complete the entire thing, which is more than any other single road in Europe. The journey takes around 21 hours.

Tackling this mammoth journey has long been an issue.

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