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Korea’s Longest Boryeong Undersea Tunnel Broken Through After Seven Years
□ MOLIT (Minister Kim Hyun-mee) announced its plan to complete the breakthrough of the Boryeong Undersea Tunnel (6,927m) of national route 77 Boryeong-Taean construction that would connect Daecheon Port of Boryeong-si, Chungnam with Wonsan-do (Island) on June 10.
ㅇ The Boryeong Undersea Tunnel is a two-lane in each direction separated tunnel and tunnel digging construction began in at Boryeong and Wonsan-do in November of 2012. The direction to Wonsan was broken through on February 20 and the direction to Boryeong was broken through on June 10 to complete excavation in both directions after seven years.
ㅇ The Boryeong Undersea Tunnel applied the NATM (New Austrian Tunneling Method) that is commonly used for above-ground sectors. Once completed, it will be the fifth longest undersea tunnel for vehicle traffic in the world.
ㅇ In particular, construction for the undersea tunnel (6,927m) began from both sides and had to meet in the middle, and so like the northbound breakthrough, the southbound breakthrough met perfectly in the middle as designed.
□ Boryeong Undersea Tunnel is Korea’s longest undersea tunnel and despite the many difficulties with construction because most of the construction work was done underwater such as chemical explosion, etc., the tunnel was broken through without any safety accidents thanks to thorough pre-surveys and safety management.
ㅇ During the construction stages, TSP exploration (200m forward), advanced horizontal drilling (50-100m forward), and detection construction (20m forward) were performed for each stage at the working area to eradicate risks caused by inflow of seawater, and safety was procured through cut-off grouting.
ㅇ Furthermore, floodgates were installed in poor topography areas and many other efforts were made for safety management such as measuring gas and lighting to procure proper working environment for laborers, CCTVs for safety management, communication relay devices, emergency phones and lighting, and constructing emergency rescue systems.
□ Meanwhile, the Boryeong-Taean road construction will be part of national route 77 that is not yet open from Shinheuk-dong, Boryeong-si, Chungnam to Gonam-ri, Gonam-myeon, Taean-gun (14.1km) and is being constructed with the goal of opening by the end of 2021, costing a total amount of 687.9 billion KRW.
ㅇ The Daecheon Port-Wonsan-do sector (8.0km) where the Boryeong Undersea Tunnel is included is scheduled to be opened by the end of 2021 and the Wonsan-do-Anmyeon-do sector (6.1km) that includes an oversea bridge is scheduled to be opened in December of 2019.
ㅇ Once the Boryeong-Taean road construction is completed, it is expected to not only promote the local economy by constructing a west coast tourism belt that connects Anmyeon-do of Taean with Daecheon Beach, but also contribute greatly to improving the residential conditions of island residents such as in Wonsan-do.
□ MOLIT National Highway Planning and Construction Division Manager Lee Jung-gi said, “We will do our best to complete construction of the Boryeong-Taean road by 2021.” He also added that the positive cooperation of relevant institutes and community members will be essential during the remaining construction period.
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