Witnessing the completion of the western segment of the maintenance and emergency burrow of the Hsuehshan Tunnel -- the centerpiece of the 31km Highway North 1, Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday expressed his hope to see the completion of the tunnel by the end of next year.
When it opens -- it is scheduled to become operational in December 2005, it will reduce the journey between Taipei and Ilan from two hours to just 40 minutes.
The 12.9km Hsuehshan Tunnel -- connecting Pinling, Taipei County and Toucheng, Ilan County -- will be the world's third-longest when completed.
Work on the tunnel began in July 1991 and its story could easily fill a thick book.
During the first two years, there was hardly any progress as the team was held up by Hsuehshan's odd series of faults and by merciless flooding that regularly takes place in the area.
Year-round, water inundate the construction site at a rate of 150 to 200 liters per second.
Seeking to find the source of the water, the construction team had the water carbon-dated. They discovered that some of the water at the construction site is about 4,800 years old.
Designers and engineers gave up their original target of finishing in 1996, after progressing only 1.9km in four years, the US$28.6 million tunnel boring machine they were using was swallowed by falling mud, rocks and tremendous amounts of water.
After years of painstaking work and because of fears that the underground water source might be affected and take thousands of years to replenish, the team called a halt to the project in April 2001 and did not begin again until early last year.
To conquer the most difficult parts of the tunnel project, the engineering team drilled three vertical shafts into the project, one of which was the equivalent of 80 stories below the surface of the mountain range.
Also at the completion ceremony, Yu Shyi-kun yesterday dismissed media speculation that there will be a Cabinet reshuffle. The communication channel between him and President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) is smooth, he said.
"I don't think it's unnecessary to have a Cabinet reshuffle at the moment because the presidential election is about nine months away," Yu said.
Yu added that there is no discord whatsoever between him and the president because they meet and discuss government policies on a weekly basis.
In addition to the one-on-one meeting on Thursday, Yu and Chen meet at the party's Central Standing Committee meeting on Tuesday.
Yu made the remark yesterday morning in response to media speculation that he has played a marginal role in recent government policymaking because his poor performance has eroded Chen's confidence in him and led the president to act in areas ordinarily reserved for the Cabinet.
Realizing the significance of the public-health system from the experience combating the SARS outbreak, Yu yesterday expressed his hope to upgrade systems.
"The mechanism is so important that it should be upgraded to the level to be on a par with that of the anti-terrorism or national security," Yu said.
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