Under the River in Six Minutes: The Bangabandhu Tunnel Opens

Chattogram has always felt divided by the Karnaphuli River in a way that shaped the whole city's growth, with the east bank developing while the south bank lagged behind, connected only by a congested bridge. That changed this week when the Bangabandhu Tunnel opened, letting vehicles cross under the river in about six minutes instead of the long way around.

This is the first tunnel of its kind in South Asia, and I don't think that detail is a small one. It signals a level of infrastructure ambition that this country wasn't associated with a couple of decades ago, when the conversation about Bangladesh internationally was almost entirely about poverty and natural disasters rather than engineering achievements.

I have friends in Chattogram who are already talking about industrial development on the south bank that simply wasn't viable before this tunnel existed, factories and housing that can now access the port city's economy in ways they couldn't when the river was a real barrier rather than a six-minute crossing. Naming it after Bangabandhu feels fitting to me too, connecting a monument to the man who founded this country with a monument to what this country has since managed to build.