NIPPON'S PROJECT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 29, 4 February 1939, Page 23

NIPPON'S PROJECT.

WORLD'S LARGEST TUNNEL. JAPAN TO KOREA UNDER SEA. * TOKYO. A project for the construction of the longest undersea tunnel in the, world, connecting Japan and Korea, is under consideration by the Japan Railways Ministry; Two engineers of the -Ministry, Watanabe and Mr. Hirota, have made preliminary surveys.

The sea runs from Shimonesckci in Japan to Fusan "in Korea' is about 150 miles.! It is possible, however, that.the large Tsushima Island and tlie smaller Iki Island .might shorten the aiuount of undersea tunnelling. In any case, the proposed tunnel would be tiie biggest enterprise of its .kind in the world;" and the suggested cost of one "billion yen ( £00,000,000) seenls. Vet'y ,modest, even when One considers tlie low cost or labour in the Orient. "

: The" projected tunnel, - like the much shorter one which Is being built between the. Main-Island of * Japan and Kyushu, is heartily approved by the army on strategic groundsj * it would c-nable the transport of troops and supplies from Japan to the mainland to be made without the risk of aeroplane and submarine attacks.-" "." ".'. •- • v

In vicv, v of the present -shortage of f bliitdifiig • materials, howeveiy .it seems unlikely : that any Sbi'ibus work can be undertaken, until the economic stress caused by the war is ended,