Reconstruction of the Karakoram Highway the China-Pakistan Friendship Tunnels can be traced to 2013, when China began construction on a bypass of Attabad Lake with a combination of 5 km worth of tunnels, two large bridges, and 78 small bridges to bypass the lake which had been formed after a 2010 earthquake triggered massive landslides. The resulting landslides cut off both the Indus River and Karakoram Highway resulting in the formation of the reservoir. Prior to completion of the bypass, all vehicular traffic had to be loaded onto barges to traverse the new reservoir. Construction of the tunnels began in 2012 and required 36 months
Karakoram Highway in the Xinjiang region of China, to Abbottabad, of Pakistan. An extension of the highway southwest from Abbottabad, in the form of the N-35 highway, meets the Grand Trunk Road, N-5, at Hasan Abdal, Pakistan. The highway cuts through the between the Eurasian and Indian plates, where China, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan come within of each other. Owing largely to the extremely sensitive state of the Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan, the Karakoram Highway has strategic and military importance to these nations, but particularly Pakistan and China. On 30 June 2006, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the