Flowers, a coconut, and a round of cheers were part of the celebrations following the inaugural test run through India’s first underwater metro tunnel on Wednesday. The Kolkata metro’s newest line, set to open to the public in November, passes underneath the Hooghly River in the city’s northeast, with the tunnel 32 meters (105 feet) below the water.
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“This is a historic moment for Metro Railway,” Kausik Mitra, chief public relations officer for the Kolkata metro system, said in a statement. “This is a revolutionary step in providing a modern transport system to the people of Kolkata and suburbs.” The line will connect the soon-to-open metro station of Howrah Maidan and the existing station of Esplanade on the opposite side of the river, traveling 520 meters (1700 feet) in just 45 seconds. Once open, Howrah Maidan will be the deepest metro station in India. To bless the new tunnel and train, officials conducted a puja, or Hindu religious ritual, to bring good luck, after the train successfully pulled into the station at Howrah Maidan.
Bright-orange saffron flowers were sprinkled around the conductor’s compartment inside the train, and one worker broke a coconut amid cheers and applause from his colleagues. The full metro line through Howrah Maidan will be 4.8 km (three miles) long. Kolkata was the first city in India to have a metro system. Infrastructure is a major national initiative under the leadership of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Earlier this year, the country celebrated opening the first stretch of a new eight-lane express highway connecting the cities of New Delhi and Mumbai. The first completed section links the capital with the city of Lalsot in the northwestern state of Rajasthan, a popular destination for tourists. And in January, the MV Ganga Vilas ship departed from Varanasi to sail on waterways including the Ganges River for a 1,988-mile journey lasting 51 days, clinching the title of the world’s longest river cruise trip.
