10 Dollars - Elizabeth II 4th Portrait - Snowy Mountains Tunnel in Construction

The Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme was one of the largest civil engineering projects undertaken in postwar Australia, running from 1949 to 1974 and employing over 100,000 workers — the majority of them European migrants recruited specifically for the project. The tunneling work commemorated here was grueling: more than 145 kilometers of tunnels were bored through granite, diverting the Snowy, Eucumbene, and Murrumbidgee rivers inland toward the dry Murray-Darling basin for irrigation and power generation.

This coin was issued as part of a broader RAM series celebrating the Scheme's 50th anniversary. The tunnel construction phase, particularly the use of high-pressure drilling rigs and the constant threat of underground flooding, claimed the lives of at least 121 workers over the project's duration.