The 17km Suruc water tunnel has been built for the last three years or so as part of the regional development project, Southeastern Anatolia Project, which aims to boost the economy and agriculture in an impoverished part of Turkey.
The tunnel will carry 90cu.m of water per second from Atatürk Dam, Turkey’s biggest, into the Suruç Valley in Southeast Anatolia to irrigate almost a million hectares of farmland.
The planning of the tunnel, which forms the most important stage of the Suruç Valley Pumped Irrigation Project, was started in 1990 but could not be completed for years.
The Turkish premier Erdogan said that with the new developments almost 200,000 people would be employed in the region and it would contribute an estimated amount of more than USD 140M to the regional economy per year.
Erdogan added that once the water pump stations for the tunnel are completed at the end of this year, the total cost of the project would exceed USD 900M.
