Cars run into the Mila Mountain tunnel, a part of the highway linking Lhasa with Nyingchi in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Alamy
By Didi Tang | The Times
BEIJING, China, 30 April 2019
China has opened the world’s highest motorway tunnel on the Tibetan plateau after construction workers endured frigid temperatures, frequent floods and thin air over the four years and four months it took to build.
The opening of the Mila Mountain tunnel, at an altitude of more than 15,400ft (4,700m), means that China has beaten its own record for the highest motorway tunnel set in 2017 with a tunnel through Mount Que’er, on the edge of the Tibetan plateau, at 13,800ft.
The Salang Tunnel in Afghanistan reaches an altitude of about 11,200ft, as does the Eisenhower Tunnel in the Rocky Mountains in the US.
China has built railways and roads to reach Lhasa, the regional capital of Tibet, which it says will boost the local economy.
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