Salang Tunnel

The Salang Tunnel (Dari: تونل سالنگ Tūnel-e Sālang, Pashto: د سالنگ تونل Da Sālang Tūnel) is a 2.67-kilometre-long (1.66 mi) tunnel located at the Salang Pass in northern Parwan Province of Afghanistan, about 90 km (56 mi) north of the nation's capital, Kabul.

During the Soviet–Afghan War, the tunnel was a crucial military link to the south, yet was prone to ambushes by the Afghan mujahideen fighters.

After the 1989 Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, maintenance suffered, and eventually, in the course of combat between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban in 1997–1998, the tunnel's entrances, lighting and ventilation system were destroyed, so that it could only be transited by foot in the dark.

[10] In 2012, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) made a technical study for a new tunnel reaching from the Olang region in Parwan province (about 6km south) to DoShakh in Baghlan province (about 10km north), going through the mountains of the Hindu Kush, further than the current tunnel.

[11] On February 23, 1980 as a result of a road traffic accident, a Soviet Army convoy was trapped and 16 of its servicemen suffocated from exhaust gases.

[13] On February 8, 2010, a series of at least seventeen avalanches struck the area around the tunnel, burying miles of road, killing 175 people and stranding hundreds more.

[18] The Afghan National Army and NATO used their helicopters to rescue at least 2,500 people who were trapped inside their vehicles.