Five stations will be added to the current Qinghai-Tibet raiway line, in time for the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the railway line's construction.
According to China Daily, local authorities have given a go-signal to the construction of the five train stations. While the project is still being studied, Wang Qing'an of the project command center has assured that environmental protection will be a top priority as water sources will be protected and vegetation destroyed during construction will be quickly restored.
The railway is widely known as the world's highest and longest plateau railroad and is the first to connect the previously inaccessible Tibet Autonomous Region to the other regions in China. The 1,956-km long line runs through Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Xining, Lanzhou and the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.
The line was first inaugurated in July 1, 2006 with testing of the equipment and train line happening two months before. It has served a total of 115 million passengers and delivered 448 million tonnes of freight since its launch. It is currently being studied for a possible railway link to neighboring Nepal and India.
In Nepal, authorities are already preparing for collaboration with China on the railway as it anticipates that the railway line will reach the Nepali district of Rasuwa by 2020, the Nepali Times reported.
Nepal's government has realized the need for an alternative trade connection with China after the April 2015 Nepal earthquake that killed over 8,000 people and injured at least 21,000. The destruction of the Kodari border link with India made it difficult for aid to arrive which resulted in even more deaths. Nepal's reliance on India as a trading partner was further exposed to critics when an alleged blockade choked the arrival of medicines and relief material in September.
