(TibetanReview.net, Oct15’23) – China is investing an estimated 30.2 billion yuan ($4.14 billion) to build an expressway to link two Tibetan counties in Qinghai and Sichuan provinces. The work on building the expressway over a complicated geological environment with extreme climate conditions began in 2020 and is expected to be completed before the end of 2024, reported China’s official chinadaily.com.cn Oct 14.
The builders of the expressway linking Jigzhi (or Jiuzhi, Tibetan: Chigdril) county in the Golog Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Qinghai province, to Barkam county, the capital of the Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture in Sichuan province, know how complex it is to build a road in a region with such steep terrain.
Yan Zhong, deputy chief engineer at Sichuan Jiuma Expressway Company, the company building the expressway, has said the difficulties involved in building the expressway boggle the imagination.
“The most challenging section was the 5.5-km Shenzuo tunnel, which runs through a complicated geological environment, including fragile, weak and jointed rock masses. Through consistent trial and error, we were able to come up with the final tunnelling plan,” Yan has said, adding that the entire project depended on the tunnel being completed.
Extending for 219 kilometres, the four-lane expressway lies at an altitude above 3,300 meters. This means that the annual average temperature is just 1.4 C, and can drop as low as -36 C, the report said.
The company has said extreme climate had limited work to roughly six months a year.
The expressway is expected to open to traffic before the end of next year, the company has added.