The Panama Canal: A Shortcut in Danger
Most of us like shortcuts — the ones that get us to a place faster, whether we have to walk through a few trees or jump over a wall.
But how far would you go to make a really good shortcut?
Probably not as far as the Americans did when they built the Panama Canal, giving ships a quicker route between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific.
When it opened in 1914, the canal cut the journey time from the east coast of the US to the west coast by as much as 15,000 kilometers.
This was not an easy shortcut. Panama had been chosen because it was the narrowest part of Central America.
But the land was mountainous and full of tropical rainforests — and it was still more than 80 kilometers wide.
It's said that almost 6,000 workers died making the canal between 1904 and 1913, but the real number is probably much higher.
As well as the difficult, dangerous job they had, those workers — many from the Caribbean — had to deal with heat, mosquitoes, snakes and lots of rain.
The result was a canal that has been called one of the wonders of the modern world.
Today, a ship entering the canal has to pass through three sets of locks. These are used like stairs, and they're needed because the canal is not the same height all the way through.
The locks use lots of fresh water to lift up the boats — on average, 9 billion liters every day from lakes next to the canal.
And although Panama is a wet country, the climate is changing, and there is less water now than there used to be.
The Panama Canal is still a shortcut for now, but it's in danger.
