The Lijiang to Shangri-la National Highway (the Highway) was commenced in July 2016, planning to be put into use in October 2019. The trunk highway is 125km long with total investment reaching 3.356 billion USD. The designed speed is 80km/hour. It is expected that after the highway is put into use, it takes only about two hours to drive from Baihanchang flyover in Lijiang to Shangri-la. 

The Highway is featured by high altitude and very complex topography and geology, making the construction extremely difficult

It is the highway with highest sea level in Yunnan Province. Besides, the site lies in the highly-seismic belt with great relative height difference and complex topography and geology, thus making the construction extremely difficult. 

Jinsha River Bridge over Hutiao Gorge on the Highway

“I get up at seven in the morning, convene a five-minute meeting at 7:30 to arrange tasks of the day for workers, emphasizing on key points of attention for construction safety. They I will go to the construction site to solve problems and difficulties in the construction. Our leaving time is 6:30 p.m. But in most cases, we have to work till 11:00 p.m. and go to bed after 0:00 a.m. ”, said Chief Engineer Li Minghuan in the Project Department about his routine work.

The highly-difficult and intensive work raises high requirements for construction machinery. The high-quality construction machinery is crucial for the high efficiency. More than 100 XCMG G1 cranes work along the entire route of highway construction, doing various hoisting operations. For example, this XCT20L5 would work continuously for at least ten hours a day. Till today, no breakdown has ever happened to the unit. 

The XCT20L5 crane of XCMG is working on the Highway