June 30
Xinjiang Lieutenant (yù) ploughed to the end
The road was officially opened to traffic
It is currently in the world
The flowing sand dunes are the most widely distributed, the construction conditions are the worst,
The most difficult desert road to construct
How about Chinese builders
Roads are built in places without water, electricity, and signals?
Five years
What difficulties and challenges have the builders overcome?
Let's take a look at ↓
The first hurdle: sand mountains, basins
"More than 40 bulldozers pushed for 150 days"
The Weihe Highway connects Yuli County and Zhimu County, located in the Tarim Basin between the southern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains and the northern foothills of the Alkin Mountains, through the hinterland of the Taklamakan Desert.
The total length of the highway is 334 kilometers, the desert section is 307 kilometers long, and there are more than 30 tall sand mountains in the area, which is the third highway to cross the "Sea of Death" after the two desert roads of Luntai-Minfeng and Aksu-Aral-Hotan.
△ Image source: "Ministry of Transport" WeChat public account
The biggest challenge in building roads in the desert is sand.
The project leader said that "I have never seen such a large sandbag", "our construction personnel ate and lived on the site, driving more than 40 high-power crawler bulldozers for a full 150 days, before completely 'flattening' the mountain, the amount of excavation of this sand mountain alone is as high as 1.5 million square meters, accounting for one-eighth of the entire project digging volume." ”
The second hurdle: extreme heat and little rain
"The surface is close to 70 ° C, and even eggs can be fried"
The average annual precipitation of the Taklamakan Desert does not exceed 100 mm, while the average evaporation is as high as 2500 to 3400 mm. The staff said that the heat was the second test facing the construction team.
"The Taklamakan Desert has very high summer temperatures, more than 40 degrees, and the surface temperature is close to 70 degrees Celsius. At the hottest time of the year, piping hot quicksand can fry eggs. In order to prevent heat stroke, on-site workers drink an average of 8 to 10 liters of water per person per day. But fetching water is also very laborious, mainly from outside the desert to the inside, and the nearest water intake point to the construction site takes more than 250 kilometers to go back and forth. ”
More than 400 workers, more than 700 days
One shovel and one shovel, one foot and one foot to step out of the "Chinese Rubik's Cube"
To build roads in the world's second largest mobile desert, it is not enough to rely on hardships and stand hard work, the key is to solve the problem of sand prevention and sand fixation.
So, how to protect the highway from being buried by yellow sand? The builders adopted the "Chinese Rubik's Cube", a "grass square" technology that embodies Chinese wisdom.
According to reports, the "grass grid" is to use reed materials to set up a grid-like windshield wall on the flowing sand dunes, by making the ground rough, reducing the wind and blocking the quicksand.
The project leader said that in the undulating sand construction, mechanization is not useful ↓↓↓
First of all, each bundle of 70 kilograms of reeds is manually carried into the desert, transported to the designated location, and then drawn a construction grid line on the sand dunes;
Then place the neatly trimmed reeds horizontally on the checkered line, and use a shovel to embed the reeds into the sand from the middle, so that the two ends of the grass are cocked, and the height of the exposed ground is about 20 to 25 cm;
After that, the foundation is solidified with sand, and finally a square of 1 meter long and 1 meter wide is formed.
"The grass square of more than 58 million square meters on the Weihe Highway is based on more than 400 workers, which took more than 700 days to insert one shovel and one shovel, and step on one foot at a time."
A bridge protects the ecological environment
One road leads to poverty alleviation
The Tarim River Special Bridge, which is nearly 1300 meters long, is the only extra-large bridge in the whole line of the Weihe Desert Highway, and Jing Wenyun, a lieutenant and chief engineer of the Xinjiang Wuwei Highway Project of China Communications Construction, said that the special bridge was born to better protect the local ecological environment. "There are farmland around the bridge, poplar forest reserve, and Yuli County Wetland Park, in order to protect the local environment, reduce the local poplar forest felling and basic farmland occupation, so the project was designed to use the way of building a bridge to cross the Tarim River Conservation Area."
Zheng Mingquan, a deputy director-level cadre of the Transportation Department of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, said that the Weihe Highway will greatly facilitate the travel of the masses in Yuli County and Zhimu County, and improve the situation that it is difficult to sell local agricultural products. "And the end of the county original to Korla to take a detour Ruoqiang, this road can reduce the travel mileage of more than 300 kilometers after the opening of the road, and the travel time of the people of the end county will be greatly shortened, the cost of living will be reduced, and the sales of agricultural products will have a great role in promoting." In addition, the weihe highway crossing area is the oil geological reserve enrichment zone of the Tarim Basin, which will provide strong support for the exploration, development and transportation of oil and natural gas in the future, and further promote the economic and social development of the southern Xinjiang region.
Source: CCTV news client