<strong>Dec. 13 to Dec. 19</strong>
On a good day, workers digging the 5,483m-long Anshuo Tunnel (安朔隧道) made two meters of progress. While the brittle rock was easy to blast through, it also collapsed easily, and the crew proceeded carefully as any mishap could set them back weeks.
“We worked around the clock, but we often moved forward just the lengths of two desks,” recalls construction supervisor Shih Ching-pian (施清覑) in the South Link Report (南鐵報導) newspaper.
The Anshuo Tunnel is the second longest of 36 tunnels blasted through the Central Mountain Range to build the South Link Railway (南迴鐵路), which was the