O canal de Corinto é um canal que liga o golfo de Corinto
com o mar Egeu. Ele passa pelo istmo de Corinto, e separa a península do
Peloponeso da parte principal da Grécia, e torna o Peloponeso efetivamente uma
ilha. O canal possui 6,3 km de comprimento, e foi construído entre 1881 e 1893.
Torna a locomoção de barcos pequenos na região mais fácil, uma vez que elas
assim não precisam dar a volta em cerca de 400 km, em torno do Peloponeso.
Porém, por ter apenas 21 metros de largura, é muito estreito para cargueiros
internacionais. O canal é atualmente usado principalmente por barcos
turísticos: 11 mil barcos navegam pelo canal anualmente. The Corinth Canal (Greek:
Διώρυγα της Κορίνθου, romanized: Dhioryga tis Korinthou) connects the Gulf of
Corinth in the Ionian Sea with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. It cuts
through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth and separates the Peloponnese from the
Greek mainland, arguably making the peninsula an island. The canal was dug
through the isthmus at sea level and has no locks. It is 6.4 kilometres (4 mi)
in length and only 21.4 metres (70 ft) wide at its base, making it impassable
for many modern ships. It has little economic importance and is mainly a
tourist attraction. The canal was initially proposed in classical times and a
failed effort was made to build it in the 1st century AD. Construction
recommenced in 1881 but was hampered by geological and financial problems that bankrupted
the original builders. It was completed in 1893, but, due to the canal's
narrowness, navigational problems, and periodic closures to repair landslides
from its steep walls, it failed to attract the level of traffic expected by its
operators. Several rulers of antiquity dreamed of digging a cutting through the
isthmus. The first to propose such an undertaking was the tyrant Periander in
the 7th century BC. The project was abandoned and Periander instead constructed
a simpler and less costly overland portage road, named the Diolkos or stone
carriageway, along which ships could be towed from one side of the isthmus to
the other. Periander's change of heart is attributed variously to the great
expense of the project, a lack of labour or a fear that a canal would have
robbed Corinth of its dominant role as an entrepôt for goods. Remnants of the
Diolkos still exist next to the modern canal. The Diadoch Demetrius Poliorcetes
(336–283 BC) planned to construct a canal as a means to improve his
communication lines, but dropped the plan after his surveyors, miscalculating
the levels of the adjacent seas, feared heavy floods. The philosopher
Apollonius of Tyana prophesied that anyone who proposed to dig a Corinthian
canal would be met with illness. Three Roman rulers considered the idea but all
suffered violent deaths; the historians Plutarch and Suetonius both wrote that
the Roman dictator Julius Caesar considered digging a canal through the isthmus
but was assassinated before he could begin the project. Caligula, the third
Roman Emperor, commissioned a study in 40 AD from Egyptian experts who claimed
incorrectly that the Corinthian Gulf was higher than the Saronic Gulf. As a
result, they concluded, if a canal were dug the island of Aegina would be
inundated. Caligula's interest in the idea got no further as he too was
assassinated before making any progress. The emperor Nero was the first to
attempt to construct the canal, personally breaking the ground with a pickaxe
and removing the first basket-load of soil in 67 AD, but the project was
abandoned when he died shortly afterwards. The Roman workforce, consisting of
6,000 Jewish prisoners of war, started digging 40–50-metre-wide (130–160 ft)
trenches from both sides, while a third group at the ridge drilled deep shafts
for probing the quality of the rock (which were reused in 1881 for the same
purpose). According to Suetonius, the canal was dug to a distance of four
stades – approximately 700 metres (2,300 ft) – or about a tenth of the total
distance across the isthmus. A memorial of the attempt in the form of a relief
of Hercules was left by Nero's workers and can still be seen in the canal
cutting today. Other than this, as the modern canal follows the same course as
Nero's, no remains have survived. The Greek philosopher and Roman senator
Herodes Atticus is known to have considered digging a canal in the 2nd century
AD, but did not get a project under way. The Venetians also considered it in
1687 after their conquest of the Peloponnese but likewise did not initiate a
Project. The idea of a canal was revived after Greece gained formal
independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1830. The Greek statesman Ioannis
Kapodistrias asked a French engineer to assess the feasibility of the project
but had to abandon it when its cost was assessed at 40 million gold francs—far
too expensive for the newly independent country. Fresh impetus was given by the
opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the following year, the government of
Prime Minister Thrasyvoulos Zaimis passed a law authorizing the construction of
a Corinth Canal. French entrepreneurs were put in charge but, following the
bankruptcy of the French company that had attempted to dig the Panama Canal,
French banks refused to lend money and the company went bankrupt as well. A fresh
concession was granted to the Société Internationale du Canal Maritime de
Corinthe in 1881, which was commissioned to construct the canal and operate it
for the next 99 years. Construction was formally inaugurated on 23 April 1882
in the presence of King George I of Greece. The company's initial capital was
30,000,000 francs (US$6.0 million in the money of the day), but after eight
years of work it ran out of money and a bid to issue 60,000 bonds of 500 francs
each flopped when less than half of the bonds were sold. The company's head,
István Türr, went bankrupt, as did the company itself and a bank that had
agreed to raise additional funds for the project. Construction resumed in 1890
when the project was transferred to a Greek company, and was completed on 25
July 1893 after eleven years' work. The canal experienced financial and
operational difficulties after completion. The narrowness of the canal makes
navigation difficult. Its high walls channel wind along its length, and the
different times of the tides in the two gulfs cause strong tidal currents in
the channel. For these reasons, many ship operators were unwilling to use the
canal, and traffic was far below predictions. Annual traffic of just under 4
million net tons had been anticipated, but by 1906 traffic had reached only
half a million net tons annually. By 1913 the total had risen to 1.5 million
net tons, but the disruption caused by World War I resulted in a major decline
in traffic. Another persistent problem was the heavily faulted nature of the
sedimentary rock, in an active seismic zone, through which the canal is cut.
The canal's high limestone walls have been persistently unstable from the
start. Although it was formally opened in July 1893 it was not opened to
navigation until the following November, due to landslides. It was soon found
that the wake from ships passing through the canal undermined the walls,
causing further landslides. This required further expense in building retaining
walls along the water's edge for more than half of the length of the canal,
using 165,000 cubic metres of masonry. Between 1893 and 1940, it was closed for
a total of four years for maintenance to stabilise the walls. In 1923 alone,
41,000 cubic metres of material fell into the canal, which took two years to
clear out. Serious damage was caused to the canal during World War II. On 26
April 1941, during the Battle of Greece between defending British troops and
the invading forces of Nazi Germany, German parachutists and glider troops
attempted to capture the main bridge over the canal. The bridge was defended by
the British and had been wired for demolition. The Germans surprised the
defenders with a glider-borne assault in the early morning of 26 April and
captured the bridge, but the British set off the charges and destroyed the
structure. Other authors maintain that German pioneers cut the detonation
wires, and a lucky hit by British artillery triggered the explosion. The bridge
was replaced by a combined rail/road bridge built in 25 days by the IV Railway
Engineer Battalion, of the Royal Italian Army's Railway Engineer Regiment.
Three years later, as German forces retreated from Greece, the canal was put
out of action by German "scorched earth" operations. German forces
used explosives to trigger landslides to block the canal, destroyed the bridges
and dumped locomotives, bridge wreckage and other infrastructure into the canal
to hinder repairs. The United States Army Corps of Engineers began to clear the
canal in November 1947 and reopened it for shallow-draft traffic by 7 July
1948, and for all traffic by that September. Because the canal is difficult to
navigate for large vessels, it is mostly used by smaller recreational boats. A
notable exception occurred on 9 October 2019, when MS Braemar became the widest
and longest ship to cruise through the canal. The canal consists of a single
channel 8 metres (26 ft) deep, excavated at sea level (thus requiring no
locks), measuring 6,343 metres (20,810 ft) long by 24.6 metres (81 ft) wide at
sea level and 21.3 metres (70 ft) wide at the bottom. The rock walls, which
rise 90 metres (300 ft) above sea level, are at a near-vertical 80° angle. The
canal is crossed by a railway line, a road and a motorway at a height of about
45 metres (148 ft). In 1988 submersible bridges were installed at sea level at
each end of the canal, by the eastern harbour of Isthmia and the western
harbour of Poseidonia. Although the canal saves the 700-kilometre (430 mi)
journey around the Peloponnese, it is too narrow for modern ocean freighters,
as it can accommodate ships only of a width up to 17.6 metres (58 ft) and draft
up to 7.3 metres (24 ft). In October 2019, with over 900 passengers on board, a
22.5 metres (74 ft) wide and 195 metres (640 ft) long, Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines
cruise ship successfully traversed the canal to set a new record for longest
ship to pass through the canal. Ships can pass through the canal only one
convoy at a time on a one-way system. Larger ships have to be towed by tugs.
The canal is currently used mainly by tourist ships; around 11,000 ships per
year travel through the waterway.
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