For those of you who read the Fethiye Times online, you may have seen the recent interesting article about the huge Marmaray project which is constructing a rail link between the Asian and European sides of Istanbul. My husband is a marine consultant in the UK and has been working with the Japanese construction company who are contracted to do the tunnelling part under the Bosphorus between Uskadar (Asian side) and Sarayburnu (European side).
He and his colleagues have been doing the marine risk analysis to determine the risk of a ship striking the access shaft which leads from the surface to the tunnel elements or a ship striking the construction barges during the installation programme. The immersed tunnel project is significantly behind schedule because of the archaeological delays discussed at length in the linked Fethiye Times article. The tunnelling project is now about 75% complete and my husband's role has finished. He had three trips to Istanbul in the early part of this year and thoroughly enjoyed working on the project and getting to know a little about Istanbul.
