July 6, 2022
BEIJING – A desert freeway was opened within the southern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Area on Thursday, dramatically lowering journey time, benefiting locals and boosting regional socio-economic improvement, in keeping with its building firm.
The 334-kilometre freeway, linking Yuli and Qiemo counties in Xinjiang’s Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, is situated within the Tarim Basin between the southern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains and the northern slopes of the Altun Mountains.
The freeway was constructed by China Communications Building Firm, a multinational engineering and building firm that primarily focuses on ultra-large infrastructure improvement.
The brand new freeway crosses the inside of the Taklimakan desert, the biggest desert in China. It’s the third desert highway that has been constructed by the desert.
Virtually 92 p.c of the brand new highway, 307 km, is within the desert, which makes building extraordinarily tough.
“It was one of the crucial tough desert highways on this planet to construct,” stated Wang Yunfei, director of the CCCC freeway challenge.
The freeway is predicted to considerably profit residents of the prefecture.
“It reduces journey time between Qiemo County and Korla, the capital of Bayingolin Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture, from 12 to six hours, enhancing journey experiences for native residents, reducing their residing prices and serving to them promote agricultural merchandise. outdoors the area,” Li Ying stated. , deputy basic supervisor of Xinjiang Communications Funding and Improvement Corp, a subsidiary of CCCC.
The route passes by an space with wealthy oil sources within the Tarim Basin, which can present sturdy assist for oil and fuel exploration and transportation, boosting socio-economic improvement in southern Xinjiang, it added.
“My household’s cotton subject is by the Tarim River. With sufficient water, my cotton is normally harvested,” stated Li Jinjian, a cotton farmer from Yuli County.
“However in the course of the harvest and gross sales season up to now, I used to be typically anxious and anxious that the journey from my cotton subject to the closest cotton selecting middle was an exhausting journey.
“Though the gap (from the cotton subject and the closest place to promote cotton) was lower than 50 km, it took a couple of days to finish the journey as a result of we needed to cross the desert and the river. The brand new freeway offers me hope. Cotton may be shipped simply and hopefully our revenue will enhance as effectively,” he added.
The employees needed to overcome challenges within the building.
“The route crosses the Taklimakan desert in a north-south route. With a seven-month windy season within the desert, extraordinarily harsh pure situations weren’t the one problem. We additionally needed to face issues like no water, no electrical energy, no cell phone sign, and frequent sandstorms with visibility lower than 5 meters,” stated Wang, challenge supervisor.
To scale back injury to the setting, building staff used the primary highway as an alternative of constructing a brand new basis, which is a broadly adopted technique of highway building.
“We try to guard the delicate desert setting,” Wang stated.
As a consequence of tough geographical situations and excessive climate, some areas in southern Xinjiang have poor transportation networks. Nonetheless, the area’s infrastructure has improved rather a lot this yr.
Along with the brand new highway, a railway was opened in Bayingolin in June.
The railway is situated on the southern fringe of the Taklimakan Desert, the final stretch to type a rail circuit that circles the desert. It’s also the world’s first rail loop to go round a desert.
