Metrostav Tunnel Builders Return Home for Christmas

Metrostav engineers and workers are returning home to spend the Christmas holidays with their loved ones after a year of boring underground structures in Iceland and Norway in Northern Europe, as well as at two sites in the Czech Republic’s neighbor to the east, Slovakia. The longest tunnel bored by specialists from the largest Czech construction firm to date is located in Iceland. In the wake of the success of Metrostav’s first reference project, which involved building the Siglufjordur and Ólafsfjordur road tunnels with a total length of close to 11 kilometers, the company emerged victorious in a tender for the construction of the Nordfjordur Tunnel. Thus, Czech specialists are now in the process of boring the longest tunnel in Iceland, which, once completed, will feature two lanes and a length of close to eight kilometers. Led by site supervisor Aleš Gothard, Metrostav staff have been using the traditional Scandinavian drill & blast tunneling technology, which breaks rock by blasting, to drill precisely 2,685.5 and 2,119.2 meters from the Eskifjordur and Fannardalur portals, respectively. Overall, they have bored tunnels with a total length of 4,804.7 meters in less than 13 months. The average monthly progress amounted to nearly 370 meters of bored tunnel length, which is an excellent achievement. Metrostav’s workers have now left their camps in the Icelandic cities of Eskifjördur and Neskaupstadur in anticipation of winter snowfall, which can be as deep as six meters. Local people appreciate the presence of Metrostav’s specialists, because their work will provide them with a year-round connection to the rest of the world. Construction will resume in the New Year, when crews will bore the remaining 2,761.3 meters of the tunnel. Elsewhere, close to three dozens Metrostav specialists have for now finished work on the construction of a 1,565 meter tunnel in Bjornabakkane og Lindeskreda near Veitastrond Lake in Central Norway. Since the launch of the project on August 7, 2014, they have bored and completely secured 700 meters of tunnel, together with their consortium partner Havnen Anlegg. They must now take a winter break, because snow and the risk of avalanche prohibit work on anti-avalanche embankments on the surface, necessitating the stoppage of work inside the tunnel, because boring operations depend on support from outside facilities. In view of the local climatic conditions, the team headed by Project Manager Pavel Bűrgel will only return to Norway in May 2015 to complete boring the remaining 865 meters of the tunnel. Bored by the Czech company using the drill & blast method, one third of the underground work, which has already been completed, will feature two lanes. The rest will consist of a single lane and emergency shelters. Metrostav’s Norwegian partner is using excavated granite to fill a section of lake near the shore on which a new road will be constructed. The remaining quantity of excavated material serves for building anti-avalanche embankments. Like in Norway, Metrostav’s tunneling specialists, headed by supervisors Andrej Korba and Jiří Břichňáč, have encountered difficult geological conditions during the construction of two highway tunnels in Slovakia. The first project, executed by Metrostav in a consortium with the Doprastav Company, consists of building the Žilina two-lane tunnel on the D1 Highway between Hričovské Podhradie and Lietavská Lúčka. Construction work began in mid-November after a ceremony consecrating a statue of St. Barbara, the patroness of tunnel builders. Each tunnel tube will measure over 600 meters. Completion is scheduled for the end of 2015.