Turkey opens undersea rail tunnel linking Europe and Asia

Turkey yesterday opened a 8.5-mile rail tunnel running almost 200 feet under the Bosporus seabed linking Europe and Asia at an estimated cost of $4 billion.

The event marked the 90th anniversary of the founding of modern Turkey. The tunnel forms part of a broader project called the Marmaray that would to bind Europe and Asia closer together, ease congestion, and even form a trade route between Europe and China in the future.

The ceremony held in the Uskudar district, a stronghold of the governing Justice and Development Party, saw thousands gather on the city's Asian side. Most said they had come in  support of their country and their prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who presided over the event.

For starters, passenger trains would run through the tunnel in a limited fashion, free for the first 15 days and many spectators said they would wait for others to test the passage.

Critics have slammed the project as a symbol of cost overruns, delays and the towering ambition of Erdogan, former Istanbul mayor. Erdogan has a reputation for proposing mega projects which include a sprawling new airport, as also a third cross-strait bridge.

The tunnel, named Marmaray, would apart from  connecting the two continents, carry 75,000 passengers per hour and around 1 million passengers per day.

BBC quoted Istanbul's mayor Kadir Topbas as saying, while creating a transport axis between the east and west points of the city, he believed it would soothe the problem of congestion.

However, critics of Erdogan seen the tunnel as one of his grandiose construction projects for the city of which he way mayor.

According to detractors of his proposals, which also include a second tunnel - for cars, south of Marmaray, the projects illustrated Erdogan's "pharaonic" ambitions.