Ladakh bridge on the world’s highest road
No Comments
Ladakh bridge on the world’s highest road
Subject – Geography
Context – Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated 27 projects built by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), which included 24 bridges and three roads, most of which are in the border areas.
Concept –
- One of the 24 bridges is on what has now become the world’s highest motorable road, passing through a pass situated at an elevation of 19,000 feet.
- The road is in south Ladakh, connecting Chisumle and Demchok. It passes through a pass known as Umling La, which is at a height of over 19,000 feet.
- Umling La is a mountain pass in Ladakh, India.
- The height of the pass makes it the highest motorable road in the world, and was recently recognised as such by Guinness World Records.
- The 52-km road ‘black-top’ tarmac road from Chisumle to Demchok betters the previous record of a road in Bolivia, which connects the volcano Uturuncu at 18,953 feet.
- The project to build the road through the pass — a part of BRO’s Project Himank — had been completed in 2017, after which vehicles had started plying on the route. However, the road has been black-topped only this year.
Top of the world
- At the pass, the road is higher than both the base camps for the climb to Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain.
- The South Base Camp in Nepal is at a height of 17,598 ft, while North Base Camp in Tibet is at 16,900 ft.
- The Chisumle-Demchok road is also higher than the Siachen Glacier, which is situated at 17,700 feet.
- Khardung La in Leh, which at one time was among the highest roads in the world, is at an altitude of 17,582 feet.
Why Demchok matters?
- Demchok has been an India-China flashpoint earlier, the site of a standoff between the two armies in 2016.
- In the current standoff in eastern Ladakh, which began in May 2020, Demchok has come up as a point of contention.
