See the rest of the INSIDE THE MOUNTAIN series -- ωωωIMG_5824

You get on the bed of a pick up truck that starts moving backwards for 15-20

monotonous minutes. It climbs in reverse inside a 15% slope tunel, until you reach

the stranded TBM, 2.3 kilometers (1,43miles) inside the mountain.

The feeling indescribable, the light of day gradually dims out and your eyes find it

hard to adjust in the continuous alternation of dark and bright rings. Sounds of the

water flowing down in the center tunnel, sounds of the squealing tires that barely fit

on the floor and sounds of your own breath mix inside your ears. You fight your

seismophobia with your immanent need to explore, to see the unseen. You check

your flash and the camera again just to keep yourself occupied, and wait.

You reach the immobilized monster and you walk upwards180 meters (600 feet)

into it, at the side of it that is, and if you carry some extra pounds it's a very

stressful situation, trust me i know!. Eventually you reach the bypass tunnel, you

bend, you walk 15 meters and now you are in front of of the 950 tons of TBM. You

see the 4 meters (13f) wide excavation head that stopped at the walls of a cave.

Bad luck, the TBM needs only hard rocks to dig and to bootstrap its enormous

weight upwards.

Inside the cave a group of human moles. They work in twelve-hour shifts in

unprecedented for us conditions. They set up scaffolding, pierced the walls of the

large cave with 12m irons, embraced the precarious roof with special steel mesh,

erected columns and now they prepare the way for the mole. They build a cemented

canal along the projected path that will be filled with hard, rocky material so that the

TMB to be able to move again and bore the remaining 1.100 meters (3.600f) to the

end of the tunel.

The way back was much easier, too many images for your mind to proccess.

Interesting journey!!!  I was claustrophobic while reading!!

Nice pictures!!!  I like this one the best!  futuristic.

Regards, Bernardo

A most informative and well documented journey into an alien environment.

I can empathise with your situation having worked underground in coal mines many years ago.

The view of the tunnel is booth impressive and daunting at the same time.

Very well done Michail.

Alf.

Love the series! Thanks for the emotive description. What an experience!

Cheers

PDE

Hi Michail, this is an interesting documentary series, you got to a location where few are allowed. Where is this? What shall be the use of the tunnel? Best regards. Peter

Thank you all very much for your response, i appreciate it. This is tunel at the Island of Crete, Greece where a 1,8m (6f) water pipe will be installed to drain fload water from a 800m (2.625f) high plateau to a dam lower at 213m (700f). Except from the cavities problem that is slowing the boring down engineers haven't still solve the problem of the destraction of the enormous energy by reducing flow velocity. I work for the public owned company that supervises the works so it was rather easy to get access. Thank you all again.