Qualla: Salang Tunnel

Salang Tunnel: Introduction

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sven Dirks, Wien, CC BY-SA 3.0. The tunnel was designed for a thousand vehicles a day. By 2010, sixteen thousand were pushing through it. Seven meters wide, barely five meters high in places, poorly ventilated, and bored through a mountain at 3,400 meters above sea level -- the Salang Tunnel is less a feat of engineering than a feat of necessity. It is the only north-south passage through the Hindu Kush that stays open year-round, which means that everything Afghanistan needs to move between Kabul and its northern provinces must squeeze through this single, crumbling concrete tube. When it works, it saves 300 kilometers and 62 hours of driving. When it fails, people die.

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Image: Sven Dirks, Wien | CC BY-SA 3.0

Salang Tunnel: Cold War Gift, Warm War Lifeline

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michal Vogt, CC BY-SA 2.0. Soviet engineers began construction in 1958 as part of a broad infrastructure program across Afghanistan -- roads, bridges, and tunnels that would bind the country together and, not incidentally, bind it closer to Moscow. The tunnel was completed in 1964, running 2.67 kilometers ...

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Image: Michal Vogt | CC BY-SA 2.0

Salang Tunnel: Seven Meters Wide and Filled with Ghosts

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James Mollison, CC BY-SA 2.5. The tunnel's dimensions tell its story. Some sources describe it as seven meters wide and seven meters high; others say no more than twenty feet at the base and sixteen feet at the center. Either way, it is cramped, dark, and choked with exhaust fumes from the vehicles that pack ...

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Image: James Mollison | CC BY-SA 2.5

Salang Tunnel: Blown Up, Rebuilt, Overwhelmed

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jerome Starkey, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1997, Ahmad Shah Massoud's forces destroyed the tunnel to halt the Taliban's advance northward. For five years, the Hindu Kush was once again impassable by road in winter. In 2002, the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations sent crews who rebuilt the tunnel in a single month...

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Image: Jerome Starkey | CC BY-SA 2.0

Salang Tunnel: The Mountain Keeps Collecting

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, CC BY-SA 2.0. Avalanches are as much a threat as the tunnel itself. In January 2009, slides on the approach roads killed at least ten people. In February 2010, a series of avalanches struck in rapid succession, burying miles of highway, killing at least 166 people, and trapping hundreds of veh...

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Image: NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan | CC BY-SA 2.0