Hsuehshan Tunnel Section Breaks ThroughTaiwan's Premier Yu Shyi-kun presided over on 31st May, 2003 the breakthrough ceremony of the 5.7 km western section of the maintenance and emergency gallery of the Hsuehshan tunnel. The 12.9 km Hsuehshan tunnel is the backbone of the 31 km Taipei-Ilan highway which is 94.2% finished. Once completed, the highway will reduce the journey between Taipei and Ilan from two hours to just 40 minutes. The tunnel crosses the Shueishan mountain range in eastern Taiwan connecting Pinglin, Taipei county and Toucheng, Ilan county. When completed, it will be the world's fourth longest.The western section of the service tunnel has taken 12 years to complete. Tunnelling began at both ends in July, 1991. During the first two years, there was hardly any progress as the team was held up by Hsuehshan's odd series of faults and by merciless flooding that regularly takes place in the area. The fault lines caused unexpected difficulties to the engineers including cave-ins, quicksand and water which buried the TBM used in the west tube 25 times. Year-round, water inundated the construction site at a rate of 150 to 200 litres per second.As a result, designers and engineers gave up their original target of finishing in 1996, after progressing only 1.9 km in four years. The US$28.6 million TBM they were using on the west bore was swallowed by falling mud, rocks and tremendous amounts of water. The machine was totally destroyed and had to be dismantled to be removed. The project was delayed for more than five years, and the deadline for the whole project was rescheduled three times. The project was stopped in April 2001 and did not begin again until early last year. To tackle the most difficult parts of the project, the engineering team drilled three vertical shafts, one of which was the equivalent of 80 floors, below the surface of the mountain range. They also decided to use the drill/blast method opening new drives on the west bore, one of which from the bottom of the middle shaft.There is still 750 m to go to hole through the 7.25 km eastern section of the service tunnel. Engineers look forward to finishing the whole service tunnel in August, and the two main tunnels in 2004. It is scheduled to be commissioned in December 2005. Click tw/14. Read E-News Weekly 12/2002. 24/03.