GIBRALTAR TUNNEL

Hokitika Guardian, 29 July 1933, Page 6

GIBRALTAR TUNNEL

PREPARATORY SURVEY

JOINING SPAIN AND MOROCCO

MADRID. July 10,

Preparatory w’ork-p for the construction- of a tunnel under the Straits o Gibraltar to join Spain and Morocco are progressing favourably, said the Mitirstcf of Horiie Affairs; Senor Quiroga, to-day.

■Experiments that had been made at tho' proposed entrances to the tunnel on' both sides bf the Strait h-ul yielded v6ry satisfactory results. If the laboratory investigations now in progress confirmed the correctness" of the Coriclusiohs reached by the civil engineers in their preliminary survey, the work could soon he begun, without the construction Costs exceeding the first estimates of 300,000,0(10 pesetas (£12,000,000 at par).

The first serious step toward the proposed building of a tunnel under the Straits of Gibraltar was made in 1918, when the Spanish War Office directed Colonial Itubioy Bellve, of the Enei floors, to study the- project, the scheme to be carried out in five years.

Tn 1119 a committee of Spanish financiers ’va.s formed in Barcelona fo further the scheme, which was authorised, bv the Government. If was proposed that the tunnel should start from a point west of Tarifa arid end a little oast- of Tangier, a distance of irio’-e than 20 miles, although the shortest water crossing is only about nine miles. It is esf'mated that the construction of the tunnelwould tuke'esiy .years., " ?■