Ismail al-Nagdy, head of the National Authority for Tunnels, has announced the last two Metro lines, the fifth and sixth, will be completed by 2020, pointing out that the tunneling is at a depth of 22 meters below the Nile, which belies claims that drilling in Zamalek threatens the buildings or affects its heritage.
At a seminar at the Engineers Syndicate on Tuesday, the minister explained that the fifth line will connect all metro networks and the sixth will be parallel to the first line so as to relieve pressure on it.
He said the landslide that occurred at the Bab al-Shariya Station was due to a purely technical human error that will not be repeated, adding that the incident did not affect the buildings of the area.
“The cost of one train is LE130 million mainly funded from loans,” he said. “We have a contract for 20 trains from Korea that starts in January and ends in a year and a half.”
“Tunnels are major national projects like the High Dam or the Suez Canal,” he said, adding that the tunnels the government intends to dig below the Suez Canal will end attempts to isolate Sinai once and for all.
“There will be six tunnels in Port Said and Ismailia for cars and trains at a depth of 48 meters,” he said.
He said the drilling is undertaken by Egyptian companies with 80 percent local raw materials and the financing will come from the Suez Canal savings certificates.
He said the government intends to establish an administrative capital. “This requires means of transportation like the monorail that will go over the Ismailia Desert Road,” he explained.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
