Testimonies and memories of the men who worked on the Tunnel
Memories of the Gran Sasso. A series of videos in which the forgotten protagonists of a great work speak. Those men who worked for years in the bowels of the Gran Sasso. With their labor and their hands they created one of Italy’s greatest works, the longest double-bore tunnel in Europe. Their testimonies, charged with emotion, including the memory of those comrades who did not make it, gives us back a piece of our country’s history.
“That day then in the final hole, four of us went through it. It was a phenomenal thing. The tears, the hugs, the toasts. There were a lot of people there and everyone clapping and shouting!” It was the end of the work of a great work, accomplished through perseverance, determination and courage by hundreds of workers. -Bread and Dust. History and stories of Capistrello miners -.
In an official ceremony presided over by then Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, the Rome-Teramo two-way right fornice (or tunnel) between the Assergi and Colledara interchanges was inaugurated on December 1, 1984. The second tunnel and the Gran Sasso National Laboratories were opened after nine years in 1993, amidst expenditures of engineering resources and energies, work stoppages and accidents. It was then 25 years before both tunnels of the tunnel were opened.
