China on Monday began building a highway to the country's last roadless county, Medog in Tibet, to end the county's isolation with the outside world.

Costing 950 million yuan (US$139 million), the 117 km-highway will link Zhamog Township, the county seat of Bome, and Medog in 2011 as scheduled, said Wong Mengyong, deputy Transportation Minister.

Situated at Tibet's border with India and nestled among snow-capped mountains, there are only mountain paths connecting villages and towns. Tough terrains, complicated geological conditions, lack of funds and poor technologies had failed seven attempts to build a highway in the area since the 1970s.

"We have no road, no postal services, and little communication with the outside world. Local residents rely on horse and mules for transportation," said Ngodrup Doje, Medog's county head. "Many people in the county haven't seen vehicles."

"Our life will change a lot once the road is completed," he said.

As the first phase of the project, more than 300 technical staff from an armed police unit are digging a 3.3-km tunnel through the Galung La mountain, about 4,000 meters above the sea level in Tibet's Nyingchi Prefecture.

The tunnel, expected to be finished in two years, will withstand earthquakes measuring up to a 6.5 magnitude, said Liu Genshui, who is in charge of the tunnel project.

"When it is completed, the progress for the rest of the project will be smoothed," he said.

The sparsely populated Medog, which means "flower" in the Tibetan language, has about 10,000 inhabitants, mostly in rural areas. It is the last of the country's 2,100 counties to be connected via a highway.

(Xinhua News Agency April 21, 2009)