Workers brave the elements to build 3rd Taklamakan highway
FIVE bulldozers were working on the side of a 9-meter high dune. Sand swirled into Zhang Xiaodong’s driving cab, the fine dust collecting in the lines of his sweaty face. All the while, the scotching summer sun beat down on the Taklamakan, China’s largest desert, in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Zhang is there to build a road. Not just any road. This road cuts through the Taklamakan, which is known as the “sea of death” across China.
This is the third highway to be built across the desert. It will connect the counties of Qiemo, to the north, and Yuli, in the south. The word “Taklamakan” means “go in and you won’t come out” in Uygur. When the road is finished, however, people from the two counties will happily venture into the 337,000-square-kilometer desert, after generations of bypassing it.
The first highway across the Taklamakan, running from Lunnan, in the north, to Minfeng County, in the south, was inaugurated in 1995. At 522 km long, it is the world’s longest desert highway. The second highway, 424 km long, opened in 2007, linking the resource-rich and densely-populated city of Hotan, in the south, and Aral, an underdeveloped new city on the northern edge of the desert.
Work has now begun on the third road, which will stretch for about 330 km. It is expected to open to traffic in 2021. After beginning work in Qiemo, Zhang and his team have reached the hinterland of the desert, more than 60 km from their starting point.
Zhang, 47, came to work in Xinjiang 30 years ago. He cut his teeth on roads that were being built to transport the region’s oil produce. The desert road job comes with a healthy paycheck on the one hand, but on the other is extreme heat, a lack of water, poor access to electricity and bad phone signals. Not to mention the sand storms. “I’m from Sichuan Province, a place with green hills and clean water. But I have spent most of my life in the sand,” Zhang said.
This road, he said, seems to be his toughest project so far. Working 10 hours a day, he makes several trips between dunes, and can dig up to 2,000 cubic meters of sand.
Li Qiushen, chief engineer of the project, is also seasoned in desert highway construction. He understands how difficult this one is.
“The road will pass dense, high dunes in the east of the desert. There are 32 of them, and the highest one towers more than 100 meters into the sky. Between are 28 slacks, ravines between the dunes, the widest is 12 kms across. The further we go, the more difficult it gets.”
In response to the limited water resources, this project makes use of the area’s most abundant resource — sand, which is compressed to become roadbed. They dig out sand from the dunes to make the slopes gentler, and fill the slacks with sand. To prevent heatstroke, work stops at noon; sheds have been provided so workers can rest through the hottest part of the day.