News Brief
Ladakh: China Building Bridge Over Pangong Lake In Territory It Occupied In 1950s
- The construction of the bridge will help China improve its military presence on the south bank of Pangong Lake.
A satellite image of the bridge. (@detresfa_/Twitter)
China is building a bridge to link the north and south banks of the Pangong Lake in eastern Ladakh, new satellite imagery has revealed.
The bridge is coming up near the Khurnak Fort, one of the narrowest points of the 134-kilometre-long Pangong Lake.
Large bases of the People's Liberation Army have existed at Khurnak and Sirjiap since the 1960s. The map below shows the approximate location of Khurnak Fort, Sirjiap Complex and the Fingers area.
A report in ThePrint says that China is building the bridge to counter Indian military actions of the kind seen in August 2020, when the Indian Army, aided by troops from the Special Frontier Force, captured the heights of the Kailash Range overlooking Chinese positions along the bank of the Spanggur Lake, just south of the Pangong Lake.
The construction of the bridge will help China improve its military presence on the south bank of Pangong Lake.
The Chinese have recently built a new road around the Spanggur Lake linking the Moldo garrison with the base in Rudok. The older road, which links Moldo to Rudok, runs along the southern bank of Spanggur Lake. It had become vulnerable after India occupied the heights of the Kailash Range in August 2020.
The construction of the bridge appears to have begun recently. It is being erected using prefabricated structures, the report says, citing sources in the defence establishment.
