SK Engineering & Construction said Monday that it had started the digging work for a 5.4 kilometer underwater tunnel, known as the Eurasia Tunnel, under the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul.

The Korean builder held a ceremony to celebrate the beginning of construction on Saturday, with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other government and company officials in attendance.

SK E&C will design, build and operate the tunnel, which will connect the Asian and European sides of Istanbul. The tunnel, to be completed by 2017, is expected to improve traffic management in the highly congested city of 13 million people.

An SK E&C-led consortium, also including Turkey’s Yapi Merkezi and four other Korean builders, won the $1.24 billion megaproject from the Turkish government in 2012.

(jylee@heraldcorp.com)