Roads (part 1: Most dangerous road)

On this blog topic, i would like to talk about one special road. The Yungas Road, also known as Death road. At the moment, there are 2 death roads. one in bolivia (Yungas road) and the other is in China (the Guoliang tunnel). The Guoliang tunnel was built by villages so as to allow them to connect to the city. They took 5 years to build the 1200m long tunnel which is 4m wide. However, i would like to talk about just one road on this blog post. And this road is, the Yungas road in Bolivia.

1: Yungas Road

This is also commonly known as, the road of death. This road is the most dangerous road in the world. It has claimed the most number of lives and the Top Gear drove on this road, and clearly showed why it is the most dangerous road in the world.

On this road, 200 to 300 travellers are killed yearly.

The road was built in the 1930s during the Chaco War by prisoners. It is one of the few routes that connects the Amazon rain forest region of northern Bolivia. The road ascends to around 4,650 metres before descending to 1,200 metres.

Because of the extreme drop offs of at least 600 metres, single-lane width, usually no wider than 3.2m and the lack of guard rails, the road is extremely dangerous. The surface of which the road is built on is also degrading and parts are falling off.

One of the local road rules specifies that the downhill driver must move to the outer edge of the road. This forces fast vehicles to stop so that passing can be negotiated safely.

One of the major accidents would be the accident on 24 July 1983, when a bus veered off the Yungas Road and into a canyon, killing more than 100 passengers in what is said to be Bolivia's worst road accident.

As seen from the pictures, trucks and vehicles have to pass each other, which makes it extremely dangerous for the drivers. Making it highly possible for them to make a slight mistake, and plummet to the bottom of the canyon.

Here are 2 videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKX-x4bnvs

The link above maybe not be the Yungas Road (i do not understand the language the video is in), however, this is a very likely way most of the deaths are caused, by falling off the cliff on such narrow road.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xClV7oRjj0o

The link above is about the Bolivian road by Top gear.

That's all for now, do look out for part 2 =D