Japanese engineers completed blasting work Sunday on the world's longest land tunnel, 26.5 kilometers through the Hakkoda mountains north of Tokyo.
The tunnel will eventually become part of a bullet-train link between the Japanese capital and the northern city of Aomori.
The Hakkoda tunnel is about 800 meters longer that another Japanese rail tunnel completed in 2002. Despite today's accomplishment, Japan is expected to hold world's-longest-tunnel honors for only a few more weeks, since a 34.6-kilometer rail tunnel is nearing completion in Switzerland.
The world's two longest tunnels are both undersea projects, the Seikan tunnel, stretching 53.9 kilometers between Japan's Honshu and Hokkaido islands, and the 50.5-kilometer Channel rail and road link beneath Britain and France.
Some information for this report provided by AP and AFP.