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When a mountain becomes an island

More than 28 million tonnes of rock has been shifted to make the Gotthard Base Tunnel – the same amount of material needed to make six Great Pyramids of Giza. But the Swiss have instead used the material for various projects, including artificial islands.

A lot of the work was done by Sissi, Heidi and Gabi, the names given by the miners to the huge tunnel-boring machines that carved out the new Gotthard tunnel. 

28 million tonnes is a lot of rock. What has been done with it?


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