Turkey opens first Asia-Europe rail link spanning Bosphorus

Turkey opened the world's first underwater rail link between two continents yesterday, connecting Asia and Europe and allowing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to realise a project dreamt up by Ottoman sultans more than a century ago.

The engineering feat spans 13 kilometres linking Europe with Asia some 60 metres below the Bosphorus Strait. Called the Marmaray, it will carry subway commuters in Europe's biggest city and eventually serve high-speed and freight trains.

"Today we are realising the dreams of 150 years ago, uniting the two continents and the people of these two continents," Erdogan said at the opening, which coincides with the 90th anniversary of the founding of the modern Turkish republic.

The 5.5 billion Turkish lira (HK$21.5 billion) tunnel is one of Erdogan's "mega projects," an unprecedented building spree designed to change the face of Turkey.

They include a 50km canal to rival the Suez that would render half of Istanbul an island, an airport that will be the world's busiest and a giant mosque atop an Istanbul hill.

Atomic power stations are on the drawing board. A third bridge over the Bosphorus, whose construction has already felled one million trees, is under way.