Villagers tunnel through mountain with hammers

A Chinese village spent five years hammering out a tunnel through a neighbouring mountain. For generations the only way to access Shiyan city from the Matigou village was on foot via a narrow cliff road. Each year there were several incidents of villagers falling off the cliff because of the bumpy and narrow road. “We had to dig out a tunnel for the village’s survival,” said Matigou village head Wen Changfa. “The direct distance was only 9 km, but it used to take at least half a day for villagers to reach the city in order to sell field produce and buy necessities,” said Wen. Most of the time Wen and other villagers would hammer at the mountain with the most primitive tools. “From time to time, when we had some money, we would buy a small amount of explosives to help us to proceed. The tunnel construction went ahead very slowly. Each day we could dig less than 1 metre forward,” said Wen. Although the tunnel is only 2 metres wide and 2 metres high, villagers are still happy that reaching the city now takes them only half an hour and is much safer. ananova