GoKawiilTime to blow
Before I’m allowed underground, I must sit through a short safety briefing, where I learn there are multiple hazards when you’re that deep. Fires, for instance, can break out, exacerbated by the way the salt water affects electronics. Just a week earlier, a car caught fire somewhere deep within the network. “You have to be aware all the time,” says Anne Brit Moen, the project lead for Skanska. “It’s a very harsh, harsh climate.”
After the session, I’m given a hi-viz suit, the hard hat (which has built-in ear protectors), gloves, safety glasses, and reinforced boots. I get instructions on how to operate the oxygen mask that will be in the car with me, and a device to put in my pocket that will track my exact location on screens in the control room. The device also acts as a personal warning system: If it vibrates and a blue light appears, then a blast is imminent and I must get to safety; if it vibrates and glows red, umm, well, that’s bad news and it’s time to evacuate.
“If you’re the first to the rescue chamber, press the green button … close the hatch and sit down and be calm.” Ketil Myklebost, project manager, Implenia
But let’s say I can’t—I’m too deep underground. Then there is a second, less fun option. I’m given instructions on how to access the rescue chambers. These metal boxes—about the size of a large van—can squeeze in around 16 people, and each contains chocolate, water, radio equipment, a defibrillator, and enough oxygen for 24 hours. I see them dotted throughout the tunnels as we drive through. Worst-case scenario, I’m supposed to get to the nearest one, sit tight, and hope to get rescued.
“If you’re the first to the rescue chamber, press the green button for 15 seconds to release pressure,” says Ketil Myklebost, a project manager at Implenia. “And then close the hatch and sit down and be calm.”
Calm, right. Okay.
In the hours before my visit, a huge drilling “jumbo” rig puts as many as 180 holes deep into the rock face. The number, angle, depth, and spacing of the holes is calculated in advance using software but finalized at the face—here, they’re almost six meters deep. At one point, I clamber up into the jumbo and inspect the pattern on its screen, matching it against what I can see on the huge rock face, which stands more than 12 meters tall and wide.
The holes have been stuffed with an explosive slurry. (Someone quips that if I get any on my clothes, I’ll be stopped at the airport as a terrorist. A Norwegian joke, again.) As I watch, workers in a kind of cherry picker fit each hole with a detonator and make sure they’re all connected to one another by wire, ready to be triggered remotely.
Then my personal safety device starts vibrating. When I take it out of my pocket, it’s blinking blue. Showtime.