Rising lake levels threaten to flood major railway line

Rising lakes in Qinghai province may affect the safety of the nearby high-elevation Qinghai-Tibet Railway, experts said, as they called for joint efforts between departments to prevent possible damage.

"The railway is now only 8 km from the Salt Lake in the Hoh Xil area of Qinghai, down from 12 km in September 2011," said Liu Baokang, an engineer from the Satellite Remote Sensing Center under the Meteorological Bureau of Qinghai province, on Friday.

The weather in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is becoming wetter and hotter in summer, resulting in steadily increasing rainfall in July and August, according to provincial meteorological records.