Tibet tunnel close to Indian border opens

Dec 16, 2010 - K.J.M. Varma |

Beijing

China on Wednesday completed construction of a 3,310-metre tunnel — part of an ambitious plan to build a highway connecting a remote Tibetan county close to the Indian border with the rest of the country.
State TV showed live pictures of workers celebrating as explosives ripped through one of the tunnel’s ends. It took the workers over two years to build the tunnel through the snow-capped 3,750-metre Galongla peak. Motuo county (Metok in Tibetan) is the most outlying part of the region which has no highways.
Its strategic significance is that it borders Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims as “southern Tibet”. This is also from where the Brahmaputra enters Arunachal Pradesh.
The new 117-km Metok highway will drastically cut travel time to the Indian border. The construction team broke through the tunnel just as Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao flew into India on a three-day visit.

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