Channel Tunnel Links: UK and France Meet Under Sea
British and French engineers connected their tunnel boring machines 40 meters beneath the English Channel seabed on December 1, 1990, creating the first physical link between Britain and continental Europe since the last ice age. The Channel Tunnel, or 'Chunnel,' runs 31.4 miles from Folkestone, England, to Coquelles, France, with 23.5 miles under the sea. Construction employed 13,000 workers over seven years and cost 4.65 billion pounds, 80% over budget. Eleven workers died during construction. The project had been proposed since 1802, when a French engineer suggested a tunnel to Napoleon. The Eurostar high-speed rail service began carrying passengers in 1994, cutting London-to-Paris travel time to about two and a half hours. The tunnel carries roughly 10 million passengers per year and handles 25% of cross-Channel freight traffic.
December 1, 1990
36 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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