Construction of the modern Corinth Canal—which is 6. The canal is narrow only Landslides from the steep walls have occasionally blocked the canal, while channeled winds and tides also can make navigation difficult. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 51 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed.
The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Caption by M. The largest irrigation canal in the world and a key landmark along the U.
This image captures about 15 kilometers 9. Image of the Day Land Human Presence. The construction of the Corinthian Canal was fraught with a lot of complications, though the concept was envisioned under the regime of Periander. Primarily, the superstition and orthodoxy coupled with lack of infrastructural facilities, tricky geological conditions and war led to the procrastination of the construction of the canal.
To begin with, the route of the canal was composed of treacherous rocks along with being in a high-seismic zone. This made the route highly volatile and prone to unprecedented earthquakes. It needs to be noted that when the construction of the canal actually started in the late s, a major portion of the rock formations had to be overhauled and removed before the engineers and architects could start with their work.
In addition, Apollonius of Tyana, the Greek philosopher, had prophesied that anyone who takes initiatives to build a Corinthian canal would end up with illness. However, a timeline of the emperors who tried to convert the engineering dream into reality needs to be mentioned.
The otherwise autocratic Periander was the very first ruler to have visualised a canal to bridge the navigational distance encountered by ships. However, Periander abandoned the project due to lack of viability and as he was wary of exacting the wrath of the gods. When the plan proved difficult, he had a limestone platform with a simpler and less costly overland portage road known as Diolkos built where the ships would be loaded till they could pass from one Gulf to another.
With this stone carriage way, the ships were rolled onto the Olkos, a wheeled contraption, which made the loading and the unloading of the ships easier. Ships whose dimensions made it impractical for them to be loaded onto the Diolkos and the Olkos, their cargo used to be removed at one shore and then re-loaded onto a waiting ship at the other shore.
The procedure was complicated, though the only feasible one at that time. Even after decades, the remnants of the Diolkos can be found next to the modern Corinthian Canal. Dimitrios Poliorkiti, who was the King of Macedon, began excavations as part of the project in BC, but later abandoned the plan after he was told by his engineers that such a canal linking the Aegean and the Adriatic would flood the Aegean, as the Sea God Poseidon opposed the construction of the canal.
The Roman dictator Julius Caesar had moved his plans despite a dark prophecy from philosopher Apollonius of Tyana but was assassinated before he could begin digging the canal. The emperor Nero had some success regarding the construction of the Canal of Corinth. He was the first ruler — and the first person overall — to dig the land indicating the beginning of the canal construction. According to the historic documents, Emperor Nero had started the construction of the canal with a group of 6, slaves, mostly Jewish prisoners of war, smashing around 3, meters of rock on the Corinthian Gulf side.
The workers built — feet wide trenches from both sides and a few of them were assigned to drill deep shafts in order to understand the quality of the rock.
However, the work had to be stopped when he was forced to return to crush a rebellion before his death. But the plan was abandoned when it proved to be too daunting. Location of Isthmus of Corinth, Current canal is shown in light blue — Credits: wikipedia. In the year , after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the newly appointed Greek governor Capodistrias led the resurgence of the idea of the Corinth Canal.
But the construction had to be postponed since the new government was not in a position to spend the estimated cost of 40 million French francs. When the Suez Canal was opened in , the Greek government reconsidered its own canal. The government of Prime Minister Thrasyvoulos Zaimis passed a law in authorizing the construction of a Corinth Canal and a French company was hired to oversee the project.
It was not long before money became an issue. The French company building the Panama Canal went bankrupt and French banks became skittish about loaning money for major construction projects. Soon the French company working on the Corinth Canal went bankrupt too. King George I of Greece was present when construction was begun in April The company's initial capital was 30 million francs. After eight years of work, it ran out of money. A bond proposal to issue 60, bonds at francs each failed when less than half the bonds were sold.
Even a bank that had agreed to raise additional funds for the project failed. In , construction resumed when the canal project was transferred to a Greek company. The canal was completed in July , eleven years after construction had begun. Although the canal saves ships about miles, problems continued after the Corinth Canal was completed.
The canal is very narrow, which makes navigation difficult. By the time it was completed, the canal was too narrow for most ships, and its narrowness only allowed for a one-way convoy of traffic. In addition, the steep walls channel winds through the canal, exacerbating navigation even more. Another factor hindering navigation is the timing of the tides in the two gulfs, which cause strong currents in the canal. These factors caused many ship operators to avoid the canal, so traffic was way below what was expected.
For example, annual traffic of about 4 million tons had been estimated for ; however, only half a million tons of traffic used the canal that year, making revenues less than expected. By the beginning of World War I, traffic had risen to 1.
The location of the canal in an active seismic zone also caused continuing problems. The steep limestone walls were already unstable and subject to landslides, and seismic activity and the wake of ships passing through the canal exacerbated this issue.
The canal was closed frequently to either clear the landslides or build retaining walls. Of its first 57 years of usage, the Corinth Canal was closed for a total of four years. During the Battle of Greece in , British troops attempted to defend the bridge over the canal from German parachutists and glider troops. The British rigged the bridge for demolition, and when the Germans captured the bridge, the British promptly blew it up.
German forces began retreating from Greece in , and they set off landslides to block the canal. In addition, they destroyed the bridges and dumped locomotives, bridge wreckage, and other infrastructure into the canal.
This action hindered repair work, but the canal was reopened in after the U. Corps of Engineers cleared it. Today, the Corinth Canal is used primarily by small cruise ships and tourist boats. About 11, ships per year travel through the waterway.
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