First Person Global.(Salang Tunnel)(Brief Article)

There may be better ways to get from Taloqan to Kabul, but they don't take you through the Salang Tunnel. And it would have been a shame to miss it. Built in the 1960s, a decade later it served as the backbone of the vast Soviet military presence, connecting Kabul and the north of the country. In the late 1990s, the Northern Alliance decided to dynamite both ends of the tunnel to deny it to advancing Taliban forces. No vehicles have passed through it since.

Just a few weeks ago, this side of the Salang Pass was still controlled by the Taliban, and strictly off-limits to journalists. Now, the place is flooded with traffic, most of it on foot. After climbing over a massive pile of rubble and twisted shards of metal piping, we stopped to catch our breath (it would take a whole hour to get through the toughest part of the tunnel), and entered.

The daylight just disappeared. In its place was an eerie sight: a wobbly flow of small yellow lights bobbing up and down as far as you could see, as hundreds of people tried to make their way toward the light we had just left. It was impossible to see their faces, and the distortion of the lights made it hard to tell when, or if, we would run into them.

After being in the tunnel for a while, we began to hear the screaming. As entire families waded through the rubble, sometimes slipping where ice covered the track, small children and babies wailed in the darkness. I listened to one voice approaching, ...