In Pictures: The world’s longest two-lane Sela Tunnel in Arunachal Pradesh

The design traffic density of the Sera Tunnel is 3,000 cars and 2,000 trucks per day.

New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today inaugurated the world’s longest two-lane Sierra Tunnel. The project was necessitated as the Balipara-Chariduar-Tawang road often remains closed due to heavy rainfall in the area leading to snowfall and landslides.

On February 9, 2019, the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone for the Sera Tunnel project, and construction started on April 1 of that year.

The tunnel is located at an altitude of 13,000 feet in Arunachal Pradesh, close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC), and is of strategic importance.

The project includes two tunnels, the first is a single-tube tunnel with a length of 1,003 meters, and the second tunnel is 1,595 meters long with an emergency escape pipe. The approach road and connecting road are 8.6 kilometers long. In an emergency, the escape pipe can be used for the movement of rescue vehicles and the evacuation of trapped personnel.

The tunnel’s design traffic density is 3,000 cars and 2,000 trucks per day, with a maximum speed of 80 km/h.

The Sela Tunnel was constructed using the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM) at a cost of Rs 825 crore.

The large-scale project took more than 9 million man-hours to implement, with an average of about 650 people and laborers working every day over the past five years.

A total of 71,000 tons of cement, 5,000 tons of steel and 800 tons of explosives were used in the construction of the project.