TUNNEL WORTH $8 BILLION WILL CONNECT DENMARK AND GERMANY AND CUT TRAVEL TIME IN HALF

Even though Denmark and Germany are neighbors, there aren't many direct flights connecting them. The two nations have started an ambitious project to address this: the Fehmarnbelt tunnel. At 11 miles, this tunnel will be the longest immersed tunnel in the world and Denmark's greatest infrastructure project. It will also significantly cut down on travel times between major cities like Hamburg and Copenhagen.

Germany started building tunnels in 2021, a year after Denmark started in 2020. The Fehmarnbelt tunnel, which is anticipated to be completed in 2029, will reduce the time it takes to travel from Hamburg to Copenhagen from five hours to just two and a half hours. Meanwhile, at the coast, a 45-minute boat ride will now take just ten minutes to drive or seven minutes to take the train.

"It will make our country more accessible than ever for travelers from central Europe by drastically cutting down on travel time between Germany and Denmark," VisitDenmark's international market director, Mads Schreiner, told CNN.

The tunnel, which will span two-lane highways in both directions and include two electrified rail lines, is impressive in both its function and construction. The Fehmarnbelt is likewise being constructed using prefabricated concrete pieces, which will be lowered into a trench drilled into the Baltic's seafloor, connected, and then buried. This is because the tunnel is immersed rather than excavated through a solid land mass. These sections—of which there are 79—weigh an incredible 73,000 tons, or the equivalent of 10 Eiffel Towers, and measure 712 feet, which gives you an idea of how enormous the project is.

These diverse pieces are so large that they require equally enormous manufacturing. There is a purpose-built assembly site for tunnel building near Rødbyhavn on Denmark's Lolland island. It is as large as 300 football fields on the beach. It is estimated that each component will take roughly nine weeks to construct and will have secondary seals and specially designed gaskets that will enable them to float when being hauled into place at sea by tugboats. They will be carefully lowered into the trenches that have already been dug there.

“There will be no test run for the actual immersion,” Denise Juchem, a spokesperson for Femern A/S, the Danish company leading the project, explains. “It must work the first time. We will not compromise on quality and safety. That is why we are taking the necessary time to ensure that we are perfectly prepared.”

The Fehmarnbelt tunnel's first two components were moved a short distance in the direction of the work harbor last month. The construction team is currently getting ready for the first element to be submerged off the coast of Denmark. The European Union has provided significant funding for the Fehmarnbelt tunnel, which is estimated to cost about 7.4 billion euros, or roughly $8 billion in US dollars.