The opening of the Hsuehshan Tunnel yesterday drew crowds of motorists eager to be among the first ones through -- creating a traffic jam that saw bumper-to-bumper traffic backed up for 1km outside the tunnel entrance.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) officially opened the 12.9km tunnel -- Asia's longest and the world's fourth-longest -- at 1pm. Some motorists were so enthusiastic about being the first through the tunnel that they had started lining up well before then. It took less than an hour for a huge traffic jam to form.
Reports from the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau yesterday showed that more than 1,000 cars drove through the tunnel each hour.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
One driver told the Taipei Times that she and other drivers were forced to stop at the entrance for a while before they could get inside. Once inside the tunnel, however, she was able to drive at more than 40kph and sometimes up to the 50kph minimum speed required by the MOTC.
Motorists were not penalized on the first day for driving below the speed limit, the National Highway Police Bureau said. According to the bureau, one driver was caught violating lane-switching rules.
The construction of the tunnel took 15 years and cost a total of NT$90.6 billion (US$2.83 billion). The project has continued through the administrations of seven premiers and 10 MOTC ministers.
An unveiling ceremony was held yesterday for a monument commemorating 25 workers who lost their lives during the tunnel's construction.
The ceremony was jointly attended Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), three other former premiers -- Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄), Yu Shyi-kun and Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), MOTC minister Kuo Yao-chi (郭瑤琪), and family members of the deceased workers. Government officials and family members presented white roses to honor the deceased workers' sacrifice. The sandstone monument, which is shaped like a mountain, includes the names of those who died, along with a brief introduction regarding the construction of the highway.
Kuo recounted the challenges of constructing the tunnel in a speech. She said it took the ministry an average of one year to build one kilometer of the tunnel.
Engineers encountered massive inflows of water on 13 occasions. One of the tunnel-boring machines was buried in a collapse.
"It was considered one of the world's most difficult construction projects by Encyclopedia Britannica," Kuo said.
The event then arranged for Su, Hsieh, Yu and Chang to ride together in a jeep through the tunnel. Su, the designated driver, happily presented his driver's license to the press. However, it took Su almost 15 minutes to figure out how to drive a stick-shift car before he was able to hit the road.
Hsuehshan Tunnel statistics
* It is Asia's longest tunnel and the world's fourth longest, at 12.9km. It is the world's largest two-shaft tunnel.
* It's surrounded by the world's largest network of tunnels, 58 in total.
The total depth of the six ventilation shaft is 2,437m, nearly five times the height of Taipei 101 (508m).
* 5,090,000 cubic meters of earth and stone were dug out to construct the tunnel - a volume equivalent to five Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Halls.
* Nearly 370,000 cubic meters of concrete were used in the construction, seven times more than that used to construct Taipei 101.
* The tunnel uses 20,000 illuminating units, equivalent to the lighting of six Tianmu baseball stadiums.
* 2,000km of cables were installed for the traffic control system and core mechanical system of the tunnel - enough to wrap around the nation's coastline twice.
Source: Taiwan Area National Expressway Engineering Bureau
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary