The city of Seattle, Washington started a sixty-foot deep, two-mile long tunneling project one year ago as part of an effort to replace an aging above-ground roadway that runs through the heart of the city.  The machine purchased to do the job, built in Japan and nick-named Bertha, got about one thousand feet into the job before getting stuck.  And it is still stuck.  Engineers have not been able to extract or repair the 57-foot wide machine, and they recently realized that the earth above the tunnel is gradually settling.  There is, therefore, a very loud and collective “uh-oh” to be heard in the vicinity of Lake Union and the Space Needle.

The full article, from the online Popular Mechanics magazine, is HERE.