The Raúl Uranga – Carlos Sylvestre Begnis Subfluvial Tunnel (in Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, Túnel Subfluvial Raúl Uranga - Carlos Sylvestre Begnis), formerly known as the Hernandarias Subfluvial Tunnel, is an underwater road tunnel

Tunnel

A tunnel is an underground passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.A tunnel may be for foot or vehicular road traffic, for rail traffic, or for a canal. Some tunnels are aqueducts to supply water for consumption or for hydroelectric stations or are sewers...

 that connects the provinces

Provinces of Argentina

Argentina is subdivided into twenty-three provinces and one autonomous city...

 of Entre Ríos

Entre Ríos Province

Entre Ríos is a northeastern province of Argentina, located in the Mesopotamia region. It borders the provinces of Buenos Aires , Corrientes and Santa Fe , and Uruguay in the east....

 and Santa Fe

Santa Fe Province

The Invincible Province of Santa Fe, in Spanish Provincia Invencible de Santa Fe , is a province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco , Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Santiago del Estero...

 in Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, crossing the Paraná River

Paraná River

The Paraná River is a river in south Central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina for some . It is second in length only to the Amazon River among South American rivers. The name Paraná is an abbreviation of the phrase "para rehe onáva", which comes from the Tupi language...

 between the capital of Entre Ríos, Paraná, and Santa Cándida Island, 15 km from Santa Fe

Santa Fe, Argentina

Santa Fe is the capital city of province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It sits in northeastern Argentina, near the junction of the Paraná and Salado rivers. It lies opposite the city of Paraná, to which it is linked by the Hernandarias Subfluvial Tunnel. The city is also connected by canal with the...

.

The tunnel was opened in 13 December 1969, after decades of rejected ideas, delays and frustrated projects (including the idea of using a cable-stayed bridge

Cable-stayed bridge

A cable-stayed bridge is a bridge that consists of one or more columns , with cables supporting the bridge deck....

). The governors of the two provinces, Raúl Uranga and Carlos Sylvestre Begnis

Carlos Sylvestre Begnis

Carlos Sylvestre Begnis was a medical doctor and politician, born in Alto Grande, a village near Bell Ville, Córdoba province in Argentina. He was a rural physician and worked as a surgeon in hospitals of the city of Rosario, province of Santa Fe.He entered politics through the Radical Civic Union...

, signed a joint treaty authorizing the construction in 1960; the first stone was set in 1962, and the first tubes were built in 1966. Construction was undertaken by a consortium

Consortium

A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....

 headed by the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 firm Hochtief AG.

In 2004, traffic statistics on the tunnel counted 2,780,133 vehicles, of which almost 2.2 million were cars or motorcycles, and the rest were trucks (most of them 8- or 10-wheelers).

The tunnel is controlled by a board with representatives of both provinces, formally called Ente Interprovincial Raúl Uranga - Carlos Sylvestre Begnis.

Until the opening of the Rosario-Victoria Bridge

Rosario-Victoria Bridge

Rosario-Victoria Bridge is the informal name of the physical connection between the Argentine cities of Rosario and Victoria ....

, this was the only road link between two commercially important and populous regions of Argentina, and the only one between the two provinces (more to the south, Entre Ríos is connected to the province of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires Province

The Province of Buenos Aires is the largest and most populous province of Argentina. It takes the name from the city of Buenos Aires, which used to be the provincial capital until it was federalized in 1880...

 by the Zárate-Brazo Largo Bridge

Zárate-Brazo Largo Bridge

The Zárate-Brazo Largo Bridges are two cable-stayed road and railway bridges in Argentina, crossing the Paraná River between the cities of Zárate, Buenos Aires Province, and Brazo Largo, Entre Ríos Province....

).

Its original name was in tribute to Hernando Arias de Saavedra

Hernando Arias de Saavedra

Hernando Arias de Saavedra , commonly known as Hernandarias, was a soldier and politician of criollo ancestry. He was the first American-born person to become a governor of a European colony in the Americas.-Early life:...

 (commonly referred to as Hernandarias), the first governor in South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 descended from Europeans and born in the Americas. In 2001 the name was changed to honour the former governors of the two provinces who had initiated the project.

Technical information

The tunnel is made of immersed tube

Immersed tube

An immersed tube is a kind of underwater tunnel composed of segments, constructed elsewhere and floated to the tunnel site to be sunk into place and then linked together. They are commonly used for road and rail crossings of rivers, estuaries and sea channels/harbours...

s, each measuring 65.45 m

Metre

The metre , symbol m, is the base unit of length in the International System of Units . Originally intended to be one ten-millionth of the distance from the Earth's equator to the North Pole , its definition has been periodically refined to reflect growing knowledge of metrology...

 and weighing 4,500 tonne

Tonne

The tonne, known as the metric ton in the US , often put pleonastically as "metric tonne" to avoid confusion with ton, is a metric system unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. The tonne is not an International System of Units unit, but is accepted for use with the SI...

s, with 50-cm

Centimetre

A centimetre is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one hundredth of a metre, which is the SI base unit of length. Centi is the SI prefix for a factor of . Hence a centimetre can be written as or — meaning or respectively...

-wide walls and an outer diameter of 10.8 m. The tube sections measure a total of 2,397 m, and at both ends there are access ramps, 270 m long. The road that goes inside the tunnel is 7.5 m wide, and the height from the road floor to the ceiling is 4.41 m. At its deepest point the tunnel is about 32 m under the average water level of the river.