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Switzerland inaugurated the world's longest and deepest rail tunnel on Wednesday. The Swiss held a grand ceremony with singing and dancing at the both ends of the Gotthard Base Tunnel beneath the Swiss Alps connecting the cantons of Uri and Ticino in Switzerland. The 57-kilometer-long tunnel, at points more than two kilometers deep, cost 12 billion dollars. It took 17 years to build and involved moving a whopping 28 million tons of earth. The first pair of trains traveled through the tunnel at the ceremony and crossed the Swiss Alps within half an hour, about 45 minutes shorter than what it would have taken on the original Gotthard railway. With the new tunnel, a trip between the Swiss capital and Milan in northern Italy will be an hour quicker - connecting northern and southern Europe like never before. "This is a project for the whole Europe but in particular for Switzerland. I'm proud about these tunnels. It is a wonderful day," said Swiss Federal President Johann Schneider-Ammann. The massive transportation project, which officially opens to commercial traffic this December, is considered as an engineering marvel. It will carry more than 260 freight trains and 60 passenger trains every day once regular services begin. Volker Hesse, artistic director of the opening ceremony, said the tunnel is a great creation of modern science and technology but it will never change people's respect and awe to the great Alps mountain range. "It's wonderful that we have this tunnel, but at the same time we must say human being is not so strong as we think perhaps in this moment," he said. More on: http://www.cctvplus.com/news/20160602/8022963.shtml#!language=1 Subscribe us on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CCTVPlus CCTV+ official website: http://www.cctvplus.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cctv-news-content? Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewsContent.CCTVPLUS Twitter: https://twitter.com/NewsContentPLUS