India’s public transport system has achieved a milestone after the Kolkata Metro successfully completed a test run through an underwater tunnel in the east of the city.
The metro's maiden journey through a tunnel under the Hooghly on Wednesday has been described as a “historic moment”.
The 520-metre tunnel — modelled on Eurostar’s London-Paris corridor — runs under the river from the city's Esplanade Station to Howrah Maidan Station, a journey trains will take only 45 seconds to complete.
The tunnel at Howrah Maidan is 33 metres below the surface, making it the deepest metro station in India.
“This is a historic moment for the city of Kolkata. It is the deepest station, the first of its kind in India,” said Kausik Mitra, chief public relations officer of Kolkata Metro.
“It is the first time that a train has run below the Hooghly river, the deepest station. It is the first time that we have laid the line beneath the river.”
Officials held a Hindu religious ceremony, which featured the traditions of breaking a coconut and showering flower petals, before the test drive.
Video shared by Kolkata Metro showed the crossing.
The full 16.6km metro line will connect the city’s IT hub in the east to its western part, cutting travel time between Howrah and Sealdah to 40 minutes, compared with an average of 90 minutes by road.
Kolkata, the former capital of British India, was the first city in the country to have a metro system.
Officials said the trial will last for seven months and after procuring the requisite safety certificates, regular public services will run.
The metro line was approved in 2009.
The tunnel has an internal diameter of 5.6 metres and an external diameter of 6.1 metres. Several protective measures have been taken to prevent water inflow and leakages in the tunnel.
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US households add $601bn of debt in 2019
American households borrowed another $601 billion (Dh2.2bn) in 2019, the largest yearly gain since 2007, just before the global financial crisis, according to February data from the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
Fuelled by rising mortgage debt as homebuyers continued to take advantage of low interest rates, the increase last year brought total household debt to a record high, surpassing the previous peak reached in 2008 just before the market crash, according to the report.
Following the 22nd straight quarter of growth, American household debt swelled to $14.15 trillion by the end of 2019, the New York Fed said in its quarterly report.
In the final three months of the year, new home loans jumped to their highest volume since the fourth quarter of 2005, while credit cards and auto loans also added to the increase.
The bad debt load is taking its toll on some households, and the New York Fed warned that more and more credit card borrowers — particularly young people — were falling behind on their payments.
"Younger borrowers, who are disproportionately likely to have credit cards and student loans as their primary form of debt, struggle more than others with on-time repayment," New York Fed researchers said.
