Improvement work finished on Wednesday to the 108-km highway to Mount Qomolangma, the world's highest peak, in readiness for the Olympic torch relay.

The blacktop highway was based on a makeshift gravel road built in 1978 between the national highway 318 inside Tingri County, Xigaze Prefecture, and Rongpu Monastery near the Qomolangma Base Camp at the foot of the mountain, known in the West as Mount Everest.

China's police force spent about ten months on evening the road surface, widening road base and fencing dangerous bends with guardrails.

The upgraded highway, the sole connection to the Base Camp that leads to the peak, will provide a safe path for drivers, tourists and mountaineers, and facilitate torch bearers to send the Olympic flame to the top of the world -- the highlight of the unprecedented worldwide relay.

A local bus driver said the repairs had cut vehicle travel times in half from the previous average of four hours.

Driving used to be very dangerous on the 3.5-meter-wide mountain road with more than 170 curves.

Before the repairs, ice and snow in winter and rains in summer left the road surface bumpy and unsafe. Many drivers shunned the path and would rather drive off road, which destroyed the vegetation, according to Gama, chief of the administration for Mount Qomolangma State-Level Nature Reserve.

After thorough study, experts worked out a series of measures to deal with the unique geological situations along the route, such as the problem of eternal freezing soil layer and soil melting under hot asphalt.

Workers also raised grass on more than 95 percent of the route area.

The 150-million-yuan (21.5 million U.S. dollars) project did not cause any damage to the environment, but would help protect and preserve the vulnerable plateau ecosystem, said Gama.

The regional government has firmly ruled out the possibility of building other tourist facilities, such as hotels, at the Base Camp.

Organizers of the Beijing Olympic Games are trying all out to realize the ambitious plan for the longest torch relay in Olympic history -- a 137,000-km, 130-day route that would cross five continents and scale Mount Qomolangma, which straddles the border between China and Nepal.

Official statistics show that more than 40,200 tourists visited the mountain in 2007, bringing revenue of 26 million yuan (3.7 million U.S. dollars) to the landlocked region in China's southwest.

The local government expected that the arrival of the torch would bring more tourists this year.

(Xinhua News Agency April 17, 2008)