Swiss Complete Gotthard Base Tunnel, World's Longest Tunnel

(Oct. 15) -- Engineers in Switzerland broke through the final stretch of rock today on the world's longest tunnel, paving the way for a high-speed railway deep underneath the Alps that will connect northern and southern Europe and help ease freight traffic on the continent's roadways.

Nearly six decades after the project began, workers, politicians and journalists watched as a massive drilling machine completed the 35-mile Gotthard Base Tunnel.

"The Gotthard will forever be a spectacular and grandiose monument with which all tunnels will be compared," Swiss Transport Minister Moritz Leuenberger told Agence France-Presse.

For the Swiss, in particular, the moment was one of pride. The Gotthard is now longer than the 33-mile Seikan Tunnel in Japan and the 31-mile Channel Tunnel connecting England and France.

"It's a day of joy for Switzerland," Peter Fueglistaler, director of Switzerland's Federal Office of Transport, told The Associated Press. "We are not a very emotional people, but if we have the longest tunnel in the world, this also for us is very, very emotional."

The $10 billion project will allow heavy freight to travel through the continent on trains instead of roadways, reducing congestion and lessening the impact of industry on the environment. Due to open in 2017, the Gotthard will also cut down travel times throughout Europe, allowing passengers to travel from Milan to Zurich in less than three hours.

Before that can happen, though, Germany and Italy -- whose budgets are already stretched -- will need to put up billions of dollars for local rail lines. "Our neighbors in Germany and Italy will have to fulfill their promise and provide high-speed rail links," Fueglistaler said, according to the AP.

The tunnel, widely considered to be a modern engineering feat, took 2,500 workers and experts from around the world 15 years of construction time to complete. Some 27 million tons of rock had to be removed -- enough for five Pyramids of Giza, The Wall Street Journal reported.

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"Together we risked a lot. Together we achieved a lot, because we know the mountain is large but we are small," Leuenberger told reporters.

Eight people have died working on the tunnel since construction began.

"I'm really proud, but I'm thinking also of the eight people who have lost their lives," Heinz Ehrbar, the project's lead construction manager, told the AP. "It's very important that we remember that not all of our workers can be with us today."

Only aqueducts remain longer than the Gotthard. At 85 miles, New York's Delaware Aqueduct is the longest in the world.