CHINA-TIBET: LHASA-KATHMANDU RAILWAY

The Nepalese press recently reported that China and Nepal had completed a study on the cross-border, 100-km railway that they say will connect Kathmandu with the border town of Kyirong (Chinese: Gyirong) in the TAR. Last year, China's National People’s Congress had confirmed the extension of the rail link from Shigatse (Chinese: Rigaze) to Kyirong (Chinese: Gyirong) on the Nepal border as part of a strategic rail network. Reports in the Chinese and Nepalese media have indicated that the construction of Tibet’s railway from Shigatse to the borders of India and Nepal is scheduled for completion by 2020. The article in Nepal’s www.myrepublica.com on November 11 referred to a study of the route that was part of the ‘One Belt One Road’ agreement signed by the Nepalese government with China in May. The report claimed about 85 percent of the railroad will be underground and will pass beneath the hills from Kyirong, which lies at the altitude of 4000 metres, to Kathmandu (1400 metres). 

(Comment:The likelihood of a railway tunneled deep under Chomolungma (Mt Everest), in the youngest and one of the most active seismic zones on earth, is unlikely. The Chinese official media has stated that the rail link would reach Nepal via Shigatse and Kyirong, on the border, where a new ‘land border post’ has been established. The route Shigatse-Kyirong would not naturally pass through the Mount Everest area, unless there were particular reasons from the Chinese side.This possibility was first raised in 2015 by a railway and ‘tunnelling expert’, Wang Mengshu, who was cited by China Daily as saying: “The line will probably have to go through Qomolangma [Chinese way of referring to Chomolungma or Mt. Everest] so that workers may have to dig some very long tunnels.” A more credible piece by a 'tunnelling expert' in 2012 did not mention this plan at all but focused on two possible routes that had been charted from the Chinese side and across Nepal. In the same article in the Nepalese press on November 11, Ananta Acharya, director general of the Department of Railways in Nepal, appeared to be urging caution in reaching conclusions about the nature of the construction, saying, “This was a basic research of the topology and geography. Both sides will later reach an agreement for carrying out a feasibility study.”)  






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