Croatia tunnel road tunnel tunneling Drilling

Drilling for the 5.63-kilometer-long Učka Tunnel in Croatia has been completed

*Image from the completion of Ucka tunnel's drilling (source: The Croatian government)*

It was announced that drilling for the new 5.63-kilometer-long Učka Tunnel in Croatia has been completed on Monday, September 18.

The new Učka Tunnel will be the second road tunnel under the Učka mountain, running parallel to the existing one, which was inaugurated in 1981.

Furthermore, the existing tunnel has two traffic lanes in each direction and connects Istria to the rest of Croatia, under the mountain that forms the county’s natural eastern border. However, concerns about the tunnel’s safety and traffic capacity have arisen over the past few years.

The new tunnel aims at resolving those issues, while it is scheduled to come into operation in June 2024, at the beginning of the tourism season.

Construction of the new tunnel will have a €200 million budget, while work has lasted about two years, according to television broadcaster HRT, after the European Commission gave the project approval in August 2020.

It is worth mentioning that the new Učka Tunnel is the country’s largest infrastructure project by budget.

Sources: seenews.com, www.timeout.com, www.worldhighways.com