# How the World’s Most Remote Megaproject Went Wrong ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong.webp]] **Creator:** The B1M · **Published:** 2026-03-25 · **Length:** 15:03 · [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00BHXAzYRTA) > Caption source: YouTube English (United Kingdom) **manual** captions downloaded with **yt-dlp** on the first attempt (`en-GB`, the video's only manual track; 193 timed cues), so TubeAlfred was not needed. Figures and spellings (Réunion nearly **9,000 km** from mainland France; old Route du Littoral built **1959**, ~**80,000** vehicles/day; cyclone winds up to **100 mph** / gusts to **200 km/h**; fatal rockfall **24 March 2006**, **two** killed; dyke up to **17 m** high; final plan **2011**; **Grande Chaloupe Viaduct** **5.4 km**, up to **300 m** offshore, on a **12.5 km** route; nearest continental land **1,600+ km**; **two** island concrete plants; **48** piers — **15 m**, **4,500-tonne** bases on **23 m** foundations, **9–21 m** pier heads; barge **Zourite** built in **Poland**, **eight** legs, **40 cm** jack-up; **four years** to place piers; **two spans a month**; viaduct complete **2017**; quarries at **Bois-Blanc** and **Saint-Leu**; court ruling **2018**; rock estimate **7 → 12 million m³**; halt **2019**; South African rock **2,000+ km** away; **8 of 12.4 km** built; cost **over US$2bn**; **~800** accropodes misplaced in **2021**, **2,500** removed, **€20M**; viaduct completion approved **2022**, up to **€700M** extra; Zourite returned to Europe **2020**; preliminary works end **2025**, viaduct construction **2027**, completion **2030**) cross-checked with The B1M's companion article, [France is Building the World’s Most Expensive Road](https://www.theb1m.com/video/Nouvelle-route-du-Littoral) (byline **Ian Parkin**, 25 March 2026), which follows the narration closely but rounds or differs on a few details: it gives storm winds "exceeding 200km/h", says Zourite was "brought in from Europe" (the video says built in Poland), dates the barge's return to after the 2017 viaduct completion (the video says 2020), and speaks of "hundreds of accropodes" and "hundreds of millions of euros" rather than 800 and €700M. Note the narration gives the route as both 12.5 km (6:03) and 12.4 km (12:34). On-screen captions: **Antonia Cadet** — Campaigner (Al Jazeera footage; the auto-styled captions spell it "Antonio Cadete"), and **Jean-Louis Mouniama** — *agriculteur à Sainte-Anne* (Réunion La 1ère, "NRL : l'origine des roches"). YouTube chapters used for section headings; they line up with the captions. Screenshots from the 720p stream (format 136). Host **Fred Mills**. Contains paid promotion for **Rayon Design** (~4:29–5:46; web-based CAD platform for architects and interior designers, try free); description also promotes Fred's book ***Mega Builds*** (pre-order) and The B1M's **Get Construction Talking** mental-health initiative. Additional footage and images: **France 24**, **Région Réunion**, **FOXLIMA10**, **O'TV Regardez La Réunion**, **Réunion La 1ère**, **974Runmike**, **Al Jazeera**, **IMAZ**, **Agence Sinusoide**, **Ina Actu**, **Viaduc Littoral NRL**. ## Outline ### 0:00 Where in the world...? - **0:01** In a remote corner of France, work is under way on one of the country's most impressive infrastructure projects: a road containing **France's longest bridge** and one of its most beautiful drives. - **0:16** The problem: there's a bit missing — "quite a big bit" — and it has been missing for a very long time. - **0:25** "Remote" doesn't mean Brittany or Corsica: past the Mediterranean, keep going "a very… very… very… long way" to the **Indian Ocean**, where nearly **9,000 km** from mainland France lies the island of **Réunion**. - **0:52** How on earth do you build a megaproject here? It may be one of the most difficult places in the world to build a road like this — engineering pushed to its absolute limits on one of the most isolated parts of the planet. ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0002.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0012.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0040.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0062.webp]] ### 1:15 La France - **1:17** A quick politics lesson: under **article one** of the **Constitution of the Fifth French Republic**, France is secular, social and — importantly — an **indivisible republic**. France is France wherever you are. - **1:43** So although Réunion is closer to the **South Pole** than to **Paris**, it is an integral part of the **EU** with full representation in the **French Parliament**. - **1:53** It matters mostly for prestige: **La Nouvelle Route du Littoral (NRL)** — the "new coastal road" — is not only one of the biggest projects in the Indian Ocean, it is one of the biggest in France. ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0080.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0100.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0125.webp]] ### 2:22 The problem - **2:13** Réunion is dominated by vast **volcanoes**; with an "impossible interior," towns cluster round the edge — the capital **Saint-Denis**, and **Le Port**, home to the island's port. - **2:31** Linking them is the old **Route du Littoral**, built in **1959**, tightly hugging sheer cliffs just above the shoreline and carrying about **80,000 vehicles a day**. - **2:47** News footage: violent wind and rain, gusts up to **200 km/h**. Driving it is like being "caught between the devil and the deep blue sea" — **cyclones** batter it with waves and winds up to **100 mph**. - **3:10** Erosion constantly sends rocks and boulders down onto the road and its users. On **24 March 2006** an entire section of cliff gave way, burying the highway in tonnes of rock and **killing two people**. ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0145.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0160.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0185.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0205.webp]] ### 3:39 The solution - **3:35** After the tragedy, work began on a better solution. Step one: study the maximum distance rocks could fall and set a **perimeter** any new road must lie beyond. - **3:47** The ambitious proposal: a new coastal road pushed safely **offshore**, first on a **dyke** up to **17 m** high, armoured to resist even a **once-in-a-century storm**, then diving into the cliff to enter Saint-Denis through a **tunnel**. - **4:09** Early tests found the rock unsuitable for drilling — any tunnel would be extremely difficult and expensive. Alternatives were studied and in **2011** a final plan was put forward. - **4:29–5:46** (Sponsor — see below.) - **5:48** The final plan: the western section again on a dyke, but instead of going underground it rises onto its defining feature, the **Grande Chaloupe Viaduct** — **5.4 km** long, up to **300 m** from shore, the centrepiece of the **12.5 km** route and, once complete, the **longest bridge in France**. - **6:11** Just one thing: the nearest continental land mass is over **1,600 km** away. ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0225.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0240.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0350.webp]] ### ~4:29 Sponsor — Rayon Design - **~4:29–5:46** Fred muses about building his dream house on Réunion, segueing into paid promotion for **Rayon Design**: a next-generation, fully **web-based CAD** platform for interior designers and architects covering concept to construction documents in one place — precise technical drawings, stylised client presentations and inspiration boards, live-synced procurement schedules, a library of **10,000+ CAD blocks** with AI generation of new blocks, AI conversion of plans/sections into **3D axonometric** views, and real-time collaboration on a single source-of-truth model; try it free via the description link. ("Maybe a few more palm trees?") ### 6:30 How it's built - **6:28** You have to be pretty self-sufficient: **two new concrete factories** were created on the island to cast the bridge's enormous components. - **6:38** The bridge is a **box girder** design — spans formed by joining pre-cast hollow sections, squeezed together by **pre-stressed steel cables** inside the boxes. - **6:50** It sits on **48 piers**, each shaped to minimise resistance to tide and swell, cast near the western tip of the road. Each has two blocks: a **15 m** base weighing **4,500 tonnes** on a **23 m**-wide foundation, topped by a pier head of **9–21 m**. - **7:16** To move these concrete giants: **Zourite** — the one item not sourced locally. Built in **Poland**, the specially designed barge is the size of a **football pitch**, with an onboard concrete mixing plant and a gantry able to lift the pier sections. - **7:42** Foundations are sailed out one at a time; **Zourite** (Creole for **octopus**) plants **eight steel legs** in the seabed for stability, lowers each base precisely, then jacks raise it **40 cm** so concrete can be injected into sacks beneath the baseplate. - **8:03** Installing all 48 piers took **four years**. A **beam launcher** standing on a pier then placed deck segments either side, two at a time for balance — about a **month per two spans** — before moving on. - **8:25** In **2017**, after four years, the **Grande Chaloupe Viaduct** was complete. But the bridge, though the most technically complex part, isn't what halted the project — that came with the dyke. ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0395.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0420.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0445.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0465.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0490.webp]] ### 8:45 Rocks - **8:41** The dykes are designed to **exhaust the power of the sea** rather than resist it: an embankment built up from the seabed, protected by layered armour. - **8:55** The outer layer is huge cast-concrete **accropodes** that take the full force of the swell; water is then forced through smaller and smaller rocks — an increasingly dense maze sapping the wave's energy. - **9:13** Effective, but it needs a lot of rock. The owners proposed two new **quarries**, at **Bois-Blanc** and **Saint-Leu**, to supply an estimated **7 million m³**. - **9:33** Public backlash was intense. **Antonia Cadet** and the community group **"Don't touch our rocks"** agreed the road was needed but opposed a quarry site; residents and environmental groups warned of blasting, truck traffic, dust and noise near homes and habitats. Cadet: with the wind, "we're gonna have dust everywhere," a concern for children, older people and the sick. - **10:12** "Before you roll your eyes": Réunion's waters hold pristine **coral reefs**, **whale migration routes** and **dolphin feeding grounds** — part of why a bridge was chosen for one stretch — and concerns extend onshore, where a quarry would be devastating. - **10:44** In **2018** a court ruled against any new quarry because it would destroy the habitat of several **protected species**. - **11:00** Not the end of the story: the volcanoes have long sprayed farmland with **basaltic boulders**. Farmers were encouraged to roll them to the roadside for collection — about **1,000 tonnes a day** came from **Jean-Louis Mouniama**'s field alone. Mouniama: it let him till mechanically and plant lettuce and pineapple. "Win-win" — millions of tonnes collected. - **11:54** Elegant, but still not enough for the armour — and worse was to come. ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0530.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0545.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0580.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0605.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0670.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0700.webp]] ### 12:09 More problems - **12:02** A review found the rock requirement massively underestimated: **12 million m³**, not 7 million. In **2019** the project ground to a halt. Shipping rock from **South Africa**, over **2,000 km** away, was astronomically expensive. - **12:27** A less welcome record: with just **8 of 12.4 km** built, the cost had soared past **US$2bn** — one of the **most expensive roads in the world**. Bitterly ironic, since a bridge along the entire route was ruled out at the planning stage as too expensive. - **12:58** In **2021** nearly **800 accropodes** were found incorrectly installed; a further **2,500** had to be removed to reposition them, at **€20M**. - **13:13** In **2022** the **Réunion council** bit the bullet and approved completing the road as a **viaduct**, potentially adding **€700M** — but **Zourite** had sailed back to Europe in **2020**. ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0735.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0775.webp]] ### 13:37 What next - **13:33** Preliminary work on the final stretch began at the end of **2025**; viaduct construction is due to begin in **2027**, with completion set for **2030**. Meanwhile the finished sections are in use, with a **detour onto the old road** for the missing stretch. - **13:52** Réunion's engineering prowess shouldn't be underestimated: for decades it has delivered extraordinary works in an environment more hostile than anywhere in Europe — e.g. the **Three Basins Viaduct** (*Viaduc des Trois Bassins*), practical and beautiful. - **14:20** But out here, when things go wrong, "there's nowhere to turn to." A megabuild this remote is about a drive to succeed against the odds; the NRL's story doesn't detract from Réunion's record — it shows how extraordinary it is. - **14:47** Sponsor thanks (Rayon Design) and subscribe outro. ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0830.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0855.webp]] ![[images/How-the-Worlds-Most-Remote-Megaproject-Went-Wrong-t0885.webp]] ## Things mentioned ### Roads, bridges and structures - **Nouvelle Route du Littoral (NRL)** — new coastal road, Saint-Denis ↔ Le Port; ~12.5 km (also given as 12.4 km); dykes + viaduct; ~8 km built; >US$2bn; completion due 2030 - **Route du Littoral** (old road) — 1959; ~80,000 vehicles/day; cliff-foot route exposed to rockfall and cyclones; still used as a detour - **Grande Chaloupe Viaduct** — 5.4 km, up to 300 m offshore; box girder on 48 piers; finished 2017; France's longest bridge - **Dykes** — up to 17 m high; accropode armour over graded rock; 7 → 12 million m³ of rock needed - **Three Basins Viaduct** (*Viaduc des Trois Bassins*) — earlier Réunion bridge cited as proof of the island's engineering record - Abandoned **tunnel** into Saint-Denis (fractured rock) ### Equipment and engineering concepts - **Zourite** — Polish-built, football-pitch-sized jack-up barge with concrete plant and gantry; eight legs; name is Creole for "octopus"; returned to Europe 2020 - **Beam launcher** / launching gantry — two deck spans per month, placed symmetrically - **Box girder** construction with **pre-stressed steel cables**; two on-island **concrete plants** - **Accropodes** — interlocking cast-concrete armour units; ~800 misplaced (2021), 2,500 moved, €20M - Rockfall **perimeter** study; grout injected into sacks under pier baseplates after a 40 cm jack-up ### Places - **Réunion** (French overseas department, Indian Ocean; east of Madagascar per the companion) — **Saint-Denis**, **Le Port**, **La Grande Chaloupe**, **Sainte-Anne** - Quarry sites **Bois-Blanc** and **Saint-Leu** - **Paris** / mainland France (~9,000 km); **Brittany**, **Corsica**, the Mediterranean; **South Africa** (rock source considered); **Poland** (Zourite) ### Policies, institutions and events - **Constitution of the Fifth French Republic**, article one — "indivisible republic"; full EU membership and French parliamentary representation - **Région Réunion** / Réunion council — 2022 decision to finish as a viaduct - **24 March 2006** fatal rockfall; **2011** final plan; **2018** court ruling against new quarries; **2019** halt - **"Don't touch our rocks"** community group; farmers' boulder-clearing scheme ### Organisations, media and sponsors - The B1M / **Fred Mills** (host); **Ian Parkin** (companion byline) - **Rayon Design** (paid promotion); ***Mega Builds*** — Fred Mills (pre-order); **Get Construction Talking** - Footage: **France 24**, **Région Réunion**, **FOXLIMA10**, **O'TV Regardez La Réunion**, **Réunion La 1ère**, **974Runmike**, **Al Jazeera**, **IMAZ**, **Agence Sinusoide**, **Ina Actu**, **Viaduc Littoral NRL** ### Figures and facts - 9,000 km from mainland France; 1,600+ km to nearest continental land - 80,000 vehicles/day; winds to 100 mph (200 km/h gusts); 2 killed in 2006 - Viaduct 5.4 km, 300 m offshore, 48 piers, 4,500 t bases (15 m tall, 23 m wide), pier heads 9–21 m, four years for piers - Rock: 7 million m³ estimated → 12 million m³ needed; ~1,000 t/day from one farm - Cost >US$2bn with ~8 of 12.4 km built; +€20M accropode rework; up to +€700M for the viaduct finish - Timeline: 1959 → 2006 → 2011 → 2017 → 2018 → 2019 → 2020 → 2021 → 2022 → late 2025 → 2027 → 2030 ## Biographies ### Fred Mills Co-founder and on-camera host of **The B1M**. He narrates the Nouvelle Route du Littoral story — from Réunion's constitutional status and deadly old road to Zourite, the quarry fight and the cost overruns — with jokes about dreaming of a house on the island that lead into the **Rayon Design** sponsor segment. The description also promotes his book ***Mega Builds***. ### Antonia Cadet Réunion **campaigner** (captioned on screen in Al Jazeera footage; the captions render the name "Antonio Cadete") associated with the community group "Don't touch our rocks." She accepts the road is necessary but opposes one of the quarry sites, warning that wind-blown dust would affect children, older people and those with illness. ### Jean-Louis Mouniama Farmer at **Sainte-Anne**, Réunion (captioned in Réunion La 1ère footage). Around 1,000 tonnes of volcanic rock a day came from his field for the NRL site; he says clearing it let him till mechanically and plant crops like lettuce and pineapple that he couldn't before. ### Ian Parkin (The B1M) Byline on The B1M companion article *[France is Building the World’s Most Expensive Road](https://www.theb1m.com/video/Nouvelle-route-du-Littoral)* (25 March 2026), which corroborates the 1959 road and 80,000 daily vehicles, the March 2006 fatal rockfall, the abandoned tunnel and 2011 redesign, the 5.4 km viaduct completed in 2017 on 48 piers, Zourite, the 2018 court ruling, the 7 → 12 million m³ rock shortfall, the 2019 stall, the >$2bn cost, the 2021 accropode errors, the 2022 viaduct decision and the 2027 start / 2030 completion. ### Rayon Design Paid video sponsor — a web-based CAD and design platform for architects and interior designers, promoted ~4:29–5:46 for drawings, presentations, procurement schedules, a 10,000+ block library with AI block generation and AI 3D axonometric views, and real-time collaboration; free trial via the description link.