On Friday, July 9th, the Minister of Development, José Blanco, accompanied by Railway Infrastructure Administrator -ADIF- President, Antonio González Marín, visited the construction work currently under way on the Sorbas-Barranco de los Gafarillos section of the Murcia-Almeria High Speed Line being built by FCC in Joint Venture. Minister Blanco attended the start-up of the boring machine which will be excavating the Sorbas Tunnel, measuring 7.5 km in length and totaling 98.7% of the full length of this section. The remaining 1.3% is the ground-level platform.

The Sorbas- Barranco de los Gafarillos section, pertaining to the Pulpí-Almería line design, totals 7,630 m in length and runs through the municipal district of Sorbas (Almería). Its construction will entail an investment of 251,312,566 euros.

The singular element on this section is the Sorbas Tunnel, comprised of two single-carriageway tubes each of a free cross-section of 52m2, the separation between tubes averaging 26 m, while the maximum longitudinal slope of the tunnel is 12.5%.

Two different construction methods will be employed for excavating the tunnels: using a double- shield TBM tunnel boring machine on the northern section (approximately 6,000 m on each tube); and excavation by conventional methods on the southern section (approximately 1,500 m), work on which has already begun.

A number of different measures have been taken into account for the purpose of guaranteeing the preservation of the environment as included in the Environmental Impact Statement: the elimination of debris dumps to prevent affecting the aquifers in the area, the protection and collection of the spur-thighed tortoise, different engineering solutions, one of the most outstanding of which is the aforementioned Sorbas Tunnel, for the purpose of preserving the Cabrera Mountain SCI (Site of Community Interest), the construction of animal crossings and drainage works equipped with concrete ramps to allow the crossing of small amphibians, restoration work on the native plant life on the embankment slopes in collaboration with the University of Almería (UAL) and the preservation of the plant life of the town of Las Herrerías (Sorbas) in collaboration with the townspeople having made it possible to maintain farming and growing traditional crops.

The Almería-Murcia High-Speed Line totals approximately 185 km in length, not including the accesses to Murcia, two stations being planned to be built in between - in Lorca (Murcia) and Vera-Almanzora (Almería) - as well as the future station in Almería, as part of the works for integrating the railway system into the city.