ushma87star
Par 100 posts (V.I.P)
In an obvious attempt to stun the world at the time of the Olympics, China announced on Tuesday that it was building a metalled road to the Mount Everest base camp, raising howls of protests from environment activists and generating muted security anxieties in New Delhi.
The construction of the 108-km road to a height of 5,200 metres will begin within a week - and like most Chinese execution of grand projects, will be completed in four months. The plan is to transport the Olympic torch to this point, from where Chinese runners (or mountaineers) will carry it to the world's tallest peak.
Environment activists are appalled at China, not for its gumption but because a blacktop road will mean more people, more burning of fuel, more construction and more refuse in an area whose ecosystem is fragile and already threatened.
They cite the havoc wrought in other glacial areas where roads have been built, mostly pilgrim spots like Badrinath and Gangotri.
Neither the green concerns nor India's anxiety is expected to deter the Chinese. The fact that construction will begin in a week indicates that advanced preparations like landscape surveys and geological investigations have already been carried out in the mountainous region in Tibet.
The audacious project is bound to be an engineering feat as was the Beijing-Lhasa railway project, the highest railway in the world. The road will link Tingri County of Xigaze Prefecture in Tibet, lying at the foot of the mountain to the base camp. It entails building a "blacktop highway fenced by undulating guardrails", costing $19.7 million, on roughly where a jeepable path exists.
The road plan also suggests that Chinese authorities may have discussed the project with Nepal, which shares Mount Qomolangma, as Mt Everest is called in Tibetan, with China. But it's not known if India, too, has been told. Only a day earlier, defence minister A K Antony had spoken with concern about China rapidly building infrastructure on its side of the border, and which was making India to step up infrastructure projects on its side.
Official sources in New Delhi said the road per se did not spell any fresh security concerns for India, although it would be foolish to miss the symbolic worth of the grand project for the Chinese. Mt Everest, they said, was held in veneration in Tibet, and the road coming soon after the railway project, was meant to rub in Chinese president Hu Jintao's Tibet policy that is designed to hasten the plateau's integration with the mainland.
Announcing the project, the Chinese official Xinhua News Agency , hoped the new highway would become a major route for tourists and mountaineers. There are signs that the planning for the road was carried out in some secrecy and even the Organising Committee of the Beijing Olympic Games (BOCOG) did not know about it until recently.
The above news is taken from the following link:-
http://sports.indiatimes.com/Sections/MtEverest/China_plans_road_to_Everest/articleshow/2135412.cms
The construction of the 108-km road to a height of 5,200 metres will begin within a week - and like most Chinese execution of grand projects, will be completed in four months. The plan is to transport the Olympic torch to this point, from where Chinese runners (or mountaineers) will carry it to the world's tallest peak.
Environment activists are appalled at China, not for its gumption but because a blacktop road will mean more people, more burning of fuel, more construction and more refuse in an area whose ecosystem is fragile and already threatened.
They cite the havoc wrought in other glacial areas where roads have been built, mostly pilgrim spots like Badrinath and Gangotri.
Neither the green concerns nor India's anxiety is expected to deter the Chinese. The fact that construction will begin in a week indicates that advanced preparations like landscape surveys and geological investigations have already been carried out in the mountainous region in Tibet.
The audacious project is bound to be an engineering feat as was the Beijing-Lhasa railway project, the highest railway in the world. The road will link Tingri County of Xigaze Prefecture in Tibet, lying at the foot of the mountain to the base camp. It entails building a "blacktop highway fenced by undulating guardrails", costing $19.7 million, on roughly where a jeepable path exists.
The road plan also suggests that Chinese authorities may have discussed the project with Nepal, which shares Mount Qomolangma, as Mt Everest is called in Tibetan, with China. But it's not known if India, too, has been told. Only a day earlier, defence minister A K Antony had spoken with concern about China rapidly building infrastructure on its side of the border, and which was making India to step up infrastructure projects on its side.
Official sources in New Delhi said the road per se did not spell any fresh security concerns for India, although it would be foolish to miss the symbolic worth of the grand project for the Chinese. Mt Everest, they said, was held in veneration in Tibet, and the road coming soon after the railway project, was meant to rub in Chinese president Hu Jintao's Tibet policy that is designed to hasten the plateau's integration with the mainland.
Announcing the project, the Chinese official Xinhua News Agency , hoped the new highway would become a major route for tourists and mountaineers. There are signs that the planning for the road was carried out in some secrecy and even the Organising Committee of the Beijing Olympic Games (BOCOG) did not know about it until recently.
The above news is taken from the following link:-
http://sports.indiatimes.com/Sections/MtEverest/China_plans_road_to_Everest/articleshow/2135412.cms