On August 24, The People’s Daily Onlinereported that three more unattended radars were soon to be installed in Tibet.
The mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party reminds us that China’s “first unattended radar station has stood eight years on the top of Ganbala Mountain, with a height of 5,374 meters above the sea level on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.” Now, the website affirms that “another three unattended radars were going to be installed in order to form a radar network with the previous one.”
As mentioned on this blog in 2012, Kampa-la (Ganbala in Chinese) is located in Nagartse County of Lhoka/Shannan Prefecture. At that time, we were told that a very good road had been built to serve the highest radar station in Tibet (and the world).
Kampa-la is the last pass in Nagartse county, before the road reaches Lhasa valley. Nearby is the stunningly beautiful 72 km-long Yamdrok Yumtso Lake, one of the three largest sacred lakes in Tibet. The lake is surrounded by many snow-capped mountains. It has become a tourist attraction and literally millions of Han visitors come every year to click a selfie on its shores.
The news of a radar station in this area, first appeared in 2008, when some soldiers were demobilized from the radar regiment of the PLA Air Force. The Chinese media then commented: “The percentage of oxygen in the air on the Ganbala Mountain is only 48 % of which at the sea level. That is why the mountain is viewed as the ‘life forbidding zone’.”[Source]