Rohtang tunnel

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Rohtang tunnel
Atal tunnel
Rohtang tunnel
Start of construction in June 2010 on the south portal
use Road tunnel
traffic connection Manali-Leh-Highway ( National Highway 21 )
place Pir Panjal ( Himalaya )
length 8800 m
vehicles per day 3000-4500
Number of tubes 1
Largest coverage 1900
construction
Client Border Roads organization
building-costs approx. € 250 million
start of building June 28, 2010
completion 2020
location
Rohtang Tunnel (India)
Red pog.svg
Red pog.svg
Coordinates
South portal 32 ° 21 ′ 50 ″  N , 77 ° 8 ′ 0 ″  E
North portal 32 ° 26 ′ 21 ″  N , 77 ° 9 ′ 50 ″  E

The Rohtang Tunnel ( English Rohtang Tunnel and Rohtang Pass Highway Tunnel ), officially Atal Tunnel , is a road tunnel under construction in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh . The 8.8 kilometer long tunnel is the longest tunnel at an altitude of over 3000  m . It is part of the Manali-Leh Highway and connects Manali in the south with Keylong in the remote Lahaul and Spiti district .

As an alternative to the pass road over the Rohtang Pass , it will enable a year-round connection to Ladakh .

At the end of 2019, the tunnel, which was still under construction, was renamed after the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee .

location

The Manali-Leh Highway connects northwest Indian Punjab with the mountainous and disputed border regions of Ladakh. The road over the Rohtang Pass in the Pir Panjal Mountains is closed in the winter months, which can last from October to June. Besides the road over the Zoji La ( 3528  m ) it is the only connection to Ladakh. The Rohtang tunnel makes it possible to keep the road into the Lahaul valley open all year round. This simplifies the supply and economic development of the region and also serves in particular for military supplies. The new route shortens travel time by around four hours and the distance between Manali and Keylong by around 45 kilometers.

The tunnel is not located directly under the pass, but runs almost ten kilometers to the west under the eastern branch of the Mukar Beh .

Workers' huts at the south portal in the Solang Valley

The south portal lies between the Rohtang Pass and the source of the Beas in the Solang Valley. From the beginning of the ascent to the Rohtang Pass, the road continues around ten kilometers through the Solang Valley to the west and then almost four kilometers in bends up the mountainside at over 3000 meters to the tunnel entrance.

The access road on the south side is at risk of being buried by avalanches. Therefore, three avalanche galleries , steel walls and protective dams were built in this section . Monitoring with sensors is also provided.

The north portal is located in the valley of the Chandra , a headwaters of the Chanab , around twelve kilometers west of the end of the pass road. In 2020 a new 100 meter long bridge was built over the river to the tunnel portal.

The Pir Panjal reaches heights of over 5000  m in the area of ​​the tunnel . The average coverage of the tunnel is 600 meters, with a maximum of 1900 meters. The geology of the mountain was only known from surface studies before it was built. The rock consists mainly of shale and migmatite .

Construction project

The tunnel has been discussed again and again, among other things it was proposed by Indira Gandhi in 1983 .

After the project was announced by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2000, he laid the foundation stone for the tunnel on May 23, 2002. The construction, under the responsibility of the Border Roads organization, should be completed after seven years. A construction workers camp was destroyed by a flash flood in the summer of 2003, which is believed to have killed 60 workers.

The work made hardly any progress: In 2009 the start of work for the following year was announced. After all, the access road with 18 avalanche galleries was completed in 2005 . The project management was transferred to the Australian SMEC Holding, the tenders for the construction work went to a consortium of Strabag and the Indian Afcons Infrastructure. The project costs were estimated at around € 250 million.

Ceremony with Sonia Gandhi to mark the start of construction in June 2010 in Manali

In June 2010, drilling began on the south portal. The completion of the tube built according to the New Austrian Tunneling Method , i.e. without tunnel boring machines , was planned for the end of 2015. The partial excavation by blasting the dome, the upper tube half, the bench, the lower tube part and at the end of the bottom, the tunnel floor, took place in separate construction steps. The excavation was immediately followed by the further driving steps with securing the tunnel with shotcrete , rock anchors and steel arches as well as the removal of the base, which was supported by a mechanized, 370 meter long driving device. The tunnel, with a horseshoe-shaped, ten-meter-wide cross-section, will have two lanes and walkways on either side. Under the carriageway, an escape tunnel that is 2.25 meters high and 3.6 meters wide will be integrated into the tunnel cross-section using twelve-meter-long prefabricated elements; There is an approach every 500 meters. The great height places special demands on ventilation. The large overburden also made high technical demands on the planning. The logistics in the remote region were challenging. The construction work concentrated on the south portal, as the north portal was not accessible in winter.

Sign indicating the construction project in the Solang Valley

Progress in the rock with several geological fault zones and pressurized mountains was slow and much slower than planned. The so-called Seri-Nala fault zone with a length of 513 meters, which kept the engineers particularly busy even after the breakthrough, was particularly challenging. Two tunnel sections had to be secured with 15 meter long tubular umbrellas. Water ingress - up to three million liters per day in June 2012 - and a break in the ceiling in places were other major problems. On October 10, according to another source on October 15, 2017, the puncture took place with a deviation of five centimeters.

As a result, there was always new information about the opening of the tunnel, which was occasionally used for urgent transports even while it was being built. A workers' strike in March and April 2018 over long hours sometimes led to delays. In January 2019, for example, it was announced that the tunnel would be opened and opened to traffic in August 2019, while November 2019 had been mentioned in the summer of 2018 and the construction company had just mentioned the second half of 2020. However, the date in August 2019 passed - briefly there was again talk of an opening in early summer 2020. In October 2019, the opening date was postponed again to October 2020. From now on, however, the tunnel would be available for emergencies, it was announced. Only a few later, Defense Minister Rajnath Singh announced the opening as early as May 2020, another failed promise. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic , construction work is said to have only been briefly interrupted. In July 2020 it was announced that the work would be completed in August and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to open the tunnel in September.

A fiber optic cable also runs through the tunnel, guaranteeing an uninterrupted broadband connection in Lahaul all year round .

Rescue operations and transports

In November 2017 it was decided that the tunnel, which was still under construction, would only be used in the worst emergencies for rescue operations of sick or injured people from the Lahaul and Spiti region.

150 people blocked in the Chandra Valley after bad weather and snowfall in September 2018 were evacuated through the unfinished tunnel. About 60 people overcame barriers and tried - following a minister - to get through the tunnel to the south after the pass road had to be closed due to snow in November 2018; several people lost consciousness in the tunnel because of the bad air.

Before the parliamentary elections in 2019 , around 450 people were transported through the tunnel at the end of April, as the demand had greatly exceeded the available transport capacity by helicopter. In addition to the people, the tunnel passage was also allowed four trucks with diesel fuel in order to remedy a bottleneck. It was also planned that election material, election workers and security forces would be transported through the tunnel.

Medical emergencies and passengers were also transported through the unfinished tunnel in winter 2020. A bus connection between Manali and Lahaul was set up from November: A daily bus takes a limited number of people through the tunnel. The demand for the new transport service was great.

Web links

Commons : Rohtang Tunnel  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rohtang tunnel Connection to Lahaul Velly. In: Knowledgespot. November 15, 2018, accessed December 24, 2018 .
  2. ^ Rohtang Tunnel in India: Through the Roof of the World. In: Munich Re Touch Engineering. Retrieved January 19, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Rohtang Tunnel at Lahaul-Spiti Valley. In: Verdict Traffic. Retrieved December 23, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b STRABAG: Impressions from the Rhotang Pass HighwayTunnel, India on YouTube , April 23, 2018, accessed on December 23, 2018.
  5. ^ A b Harendra Prasad: Tunnel Engineering Survey at Rohtang Highway Tunnel Project. In: Strabag India Pvt. Ltd. Retrieved January 19, 2019 .
  6. ^ Rohtang tunnel named after Vajpayee. In: The Hindu. December 24, 2019, accessed on August 6, 2020 .
  7. ↑ a b Gaurav Bisht: Engineering marvel: India's highest tunnel to see light of day in October. In: Hindustan Times. September 11, 2017, accessed December 24, 2018 .
  8. ↑ a b IANS: How to make avalanche-prone mountains over Rohtang tunnel safe for motorists. In: Live Mint. July 9, 2019, accessed December 21, 2019 .
  9. ↑ a b Devanjana Nag: Rohtang Tunnel: PM Modi likely to inaugurate world's longest highway tunnel above 10,000 feet in September. In: The Financial Express. July 3, 2020, accessed on August 6, 2020 .
  10. ↑ a b Rohtang tunnel in India: a tunnel with strategic relevance. In: Munich Re Touch Engineering. Retrieved January 19, 2019 .
  11. ↑ a b Lydia Polgreen: India Digs Under Top of the World to Match Rival . In: The New York Times . July 31, 2010 ( nytimes.com [accessed December 24, 2018]).
  12. ↑ BRO: Heroes in Highlands ( Memento from March 22, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ↑ Press Information Bureau: Border Roads to Construct Rohtang Tunnel ( Memento of November 7, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ Mukhtar Ahmad: PM ride rates desire for peace with Pak. In: rediff.com. June 7, 2000, accessed December 23, 2018 .
  15. ↑ MC Thakur: 60 washed away in Kulu flash floods. In: The Tribune. August 9, 2003, accessed May 11, 2019 .
  16. ^ Work on the longest road tunnel to begin next year: Govt. In: Livemint. December 19, 2009, accessed December 24, 2018 .
  17. ↑ a b c Strabag opens up India as a new strategic market. Press release. In: aktie.at. October 14, 2009, accessed December 22, 2018 .
  18. ↑ a b c A. Belloli, J. Wenk: Alpine tunneling experience for highly mechanized conventional driving in the Himalayas . In: tunnel . No. 7 , 2012, p. 36 ff . ( rowa-ag.ch [PDF; accessed on January 19, 2019]).
  19. ↑ a b Shriyal Sethumadhavan: The End of the Tunnel! In: Construction World Magazine India. June 2017, accessed January 19, 2019 .
  20. ^ A b c Suresh Sharma (TNN): Rohtang tunnel to open for traffic by September 2020. In: Times of India. October 5, 2019, accessed December 21, 2019 .
  21. ↑ The Rohtang Tunnel: DSI Underground props for one of the highest mountain passes in the world. In: DYWIDAG-Systems International. Retrieved January 19, 2019 .
  22. ^ Part of Rohtang tunnel collapses, work halted. In: NDTV. October 19, 2013, accessed December 24, 2018 .
  23. ↑ रोहतांग टनल का निरीक्षण करने पहुंच रहीं रक्षा मंत्री, बीआरओ अधिकारियों के साथ करेंगी बैठक (Union Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman On Rohtang Tunnel Tour). In: amarujala.com. October 15, 2017, Retrieved December 24, 2018 (Hindi).
  24. ↑ Gaurav Bisht: Himachal polls-2017: Quiet opening to Rohtang tunnel amid election din. In: Hindustan Times. October 28, 2017, accessed December 24, 2018 .
  25. ↑ TNN: Rohtang: Talks fail to end strike by Rohtang tunnel workers. In: Times of India. April 4, 2018, accessed December 21, 2019 .
  26. ↑ मोदी इस कार्यकाल में नहीं कर सकेंगे रोहतांग सुरंग का शुभारंभ. In: Dainik Jagran. May 1, 2019, Retrieved May 11, 2019 (Hindi).
  27. ^ Rohtang tunnel to be completed by Nov 2019. In: The Statesman. July 28, 2018, accessed December 22, 2018 .
  28. ↑ Rohtang Pass tunnel: breakthrough and other highlights. In: STRABAG SE. April 20, 2018, accessed December 23, 2018 .
  29. ↑ TNN: Rajnath Singh: Rohtang tunnel to be operational by May 2020. In: Times of India. November 23, 2019, accessed December 21, 2019 .
  30. ↑ Rohtang tunnel to be used only in severe medical emergency. In: Times of India. November 22, 2017, accessed December 24, 2018 .
  31. ↑ Dipender Manta: 210 rescued from Koksar, Lahaul valley. In: The Tribune. September 26, 2018, accessed December 24, 2018 .
  32. ↑ TNN: Security breach, chaos at Rohtang tunnel. In: Times of India. November 21, 2018, accessed December 21, 2019 .
  33. ↑ Rohtang tunnel opens temporarily, 450 travel between Kullu and Lahaul. In: The Times of India. April 22, 2019, accessed May 11, 2019 .
  34. ^ Tribals to cross Rohtang tunnel as per helicopter schedule. In: The Times of India. April 21, 2019, accessed May 11, 2019 .
  35. ↑ TNN: Special Manali-Lahaul bus service via Rohtang tunnel. In: Times of India. November 18, 2019, accessed December 21, 2019 .