The country’s longest “Escape Tunnel” is here! Let’s talk about it!

Recently on Thursday, the Indian Railways finished a tunnel on the Banihal-Katra section of the Udhampur Srinagar Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) situated in Jammu and Kashmir.

The tunnel is the longest “escape tunnel” in India, having a length of 12.89 km.

Here’s what all you need to know about the tunnel:

The longest escape tunnel has been designed to foster rescue work in cases of emergencies, as per the railway officials.

The tunnel passes through the Ramban formation of the Himalayas and besides this, a myriad of distributaries and drains of the Chenab River such as Khoda, Kundan nallah, and Hingni cross all along the alignment. This makes drilling an extremely challenging task, as per a government release.

The tunnel is the fourth one on the Banihal-Katra route. In the month of January, T-49, a 12.75 km tunnel got completed. The tunnel had been constructed by the New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM). It is a modern technique of drill and blast processes.