09:24
Tieng Anh Vui
PIERCING through the bowels of the Hindu Kush mountains at 3,400 metres (11,150 feet), the Salang tunnel is an engineering marvel that connects Kabul to Central Asia. Yet this vital artery, built by the Soviet Union in the 1960s, is in dire need of repair after nearly 50 years of neglect, war and use by tens of thousands of lorries, many of them laden with NATO supplies coming in from, and now going out to, bases in Central Asia.
A leaky roof, rutted surface and failing ventilation and lighting systems leave those who use the 2.6km tunnel in danger of death from both crashes and carbon- monoxide poisoning. On a bad day, especially in the winter snow, hundreds of lorries form automotive centipedes that stretch 15km down the switchbacks at either end of the tunnel. They sometimes have to wait up to two weeks to drive through. Accidents and avalanches claim the lives of about five people a year, say officials, who fear a repeat of a fuel-lorry fire that is estimated to have killed hundreds of Soviet troops and Afghans in 1982.
Both the Afghan government and foreign donors know that a new tunnel needs to be built. Closing the existing one for repairs would take at least nine months and would prevent heavy vehicles travelling between the north of the country and the capital. But no one is willing to foot the estimated cost of more than $1 billion. It is a problem that will weigh increasingly on Afghanistan as foreign forces leave, taking their large development budgets with them. Western officials say it has been hard to convince the government that the days of free spending by the international community are over. America’s Agency for International Development has said it will not support any new infrastructure projects in Afghanistan. The World Bank and Asian Development Bank will not promise to fund a new tunnel.
Instead, they are trying to get the Afghan government to look at new ways to fund such projects. That would mean building a new toll road and tunnel near to Salang to be paid for by a public-private partnership. Popular with debt-ridden governments around the world, the concept of getting the private sector to fund, construct and operate a road is so new to Afghanistan that, according to one insider, government officials needed it explained to them. A toll road would not be new to Afghanistan (both warlords and the Taliban have been fond of them), but finding a firm to invest at least $500m in building a new tunnel in a nation beset by corruption and uncertainty would be tricky.
In July American army engineers started urgent repair works on the Salang tunnel, fixing lighting and ventilation and replacing asphalt. It is the second series of big repairs in the past two years. “They are only doing it for themselves,” laments Najibullah Aoudjan, Afghanistan’s minister of public works. “In less than two years I will need to find another solution.”
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