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Over 500 Chinese workers have commenced construction of a 3,232-meter-long bridge on the Golmud-Lhasa section of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.
It will be the longest railway bridge ever built in the Tibet Autonomous Region and the second-longest on the Qinghai-Tibet railway line.
The railway bridge is located in Amdo County of Tibet at the southern tip of the Tanggula Range at 4,916 meters above sea level.
Li Jiye, Party secretary with the Headquarters for the Construction of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, said the bridge will traverse frozen earth and marshland.
The bridge is one of several key projects to be built this year to ensure the Qinghai-Tibet Railway can pass through the Tanggula Range. It will cost an estimated 100 million yuan (about 12.1 million US dollars) and will be finished by late September to makeway for rail construction scheduled for next year, said Zhou Caihua, a project manager with the headquarters.
The Qinghai-Tibet Railway originates in Xining, capital of northwest China's Qinghai Province, and ends at Lhasa, capital of Tibet, with a length of 1,956 km. Once completed, it will be the longest plateau railway with the highest elevation in the world.
Construction of the railway began on June 29, 2001, and the entire project is expected to be completed in six years.
(Xinhua News Agency June 27, 2003)
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