The World - News from Oct. 5, 1986

Queen Beatrix pulled a lever that sent massive steel gates sliding into the North Sea at the mouth of the Eastern Scheldt River in the Netherlands, forming a flood barrier that will end centuries of Dutch vulnerability to the sea. The two-mile-long barrier in the southwestern Netherlands cost at least $2.4 billion and is the country’s largest public works project. Among foreign dignitaries on hand for the dedication were French President Francois Mitterrand, West German President Richard von Weizsaecker and Britain’s Prince Andrew and his wife, the Duchess of York.