Vino and pizza — 500ft. underground

Taupo Times, Volume 20, Issue 4, 19 January 1971, Page 1

Vino and pizza — 500ft. underground

More than 100 men joined in celebrations 500 feet underground, and more than two miles from daylight, last Thursday after Italian miners blast^d through the last few feet separating two sections of a giant tunnel on the Tongariro power development scheme.

The 6% mile longTawhiti-kuri-Whakapapa tunnel is being built by the Italian contractors, Codelfa - Cogefar (N.Z.) Ltd, at a cost of $23 million. The tunnel will be the first to be completed on the $180 million scheme, but it will not carry water from the Wanganui River until later this year. The final shot was fired just after 1 1 a.m. bringing to a climax three years of work on the tunnel. Miners, Ministry of Works and Mines Department officials, and a representative of the Italian Consulate in Auckland, were carried to the face of the tunnel in three special trains. The first train carried Codelfa - Cogefar's general manager for the South Pacific, Mr A. del Favaro, and other top officials, including the Ministry of Works project engineer, Mr A. W. Gibson, and the Codelfa-Cogefar site supervisor, Mr G. Pin. Mr del Favaro invited Mr Gibson to fire the last shot and Mr Gibson asked that Mr Pin, the men's immediate boss, share the honour with him. However the firing device was too small for two men to manipulate so Mr Pin stood aside as Mr Gibson performed the task. The charge was blessed by a Turangi priest, Father H. Nederhoff, and then a loud boom, which reverberated off the tunnel walls, marked the demolition of the last few feet of rock separating the two faces. It was an amazing engineering feat as, after the smoke had cleared, it was found the two tunnel faces were within inches of their correct lines. The tunnel is far from straight and winds its way through many turns around underground streams and rock formations. The jubilant Italian tunnellers inspected the breakthrough and then returned to the second of the three trains — the vino train — to toast their patron saint, Santa Barbara. No women were allowed in the tunnel — Italian tunnellers will have only one woman underground with them — Santa Barbara. At each tunnel portal a lighted statue of the tunnellers' patron saint keeps vigil day and night. The men toasted each other with the words "Viva! Viva i minatori" (long life to miners.) as New Zealand claret

and Italian bichanti was passed around in paper cups. The vino train also carried many different types of Italian savouries and delicacies and was specially decorated with Italian and New Zealand flags.

After the celebration at the tunnel face the miners returned to the surface and a massive six-course Italian banquet prepared by cooks who had started working on it at 4 a.m. More pictures — Page J