World’s highest rail bridge being built, twice as high as Qutub Minar

Imphal: World’s highest rail bridge is being built in Northeast India. Its height will be 141 meters, which is almost twice that of Qutub Minar. It is being constructed in None district under the 110 km long Jiribam-Imphal rail line project. Due to the eco-sensitive zone of this area, the bridge is being made earthquake resistant. It can easily withstand the tremors of an earthquake measuring 8.5 on the Richter scale. The project will be completed in December 2023.

Officials of Northeast Frontier Railway Zone said that 12 km of track has been laid in Begaychampo, 110.625 km section of Jiribam-Imphal project. Train operations have been started on this section. He told that a large population of Manipur lives in Imphal. Goods trains running on this track will make possible fast supply of essential food items, medicines, petroleum products and electronic goods etc. to the people.

Sandeep Sharma, in-charge of the Noone Rail Bridge project, said that 151 small and big rail bridges are being constructed on the Jiribam-Imphal project. In this, seven pillars are being constructed for the world’s highest non-rail bridge. Five pillars have been built and work is in progress on two. The height of the two pillars is 141 meters. The rest are smaller than this. A structure will be placed on top of the pillar for laying the rail track, which will make this bridge two times higher than Qutub Minar. The length of this bridge is 703 meters. 46 tunnels will be built in this project.