The Chinese government has started building work on a 108-kilometre-long highway on Mount Everest.
The £10 million project is intended to help the passage of bearers of the 2008 Beijing Olympics torch.
The torch relay for the next Olympics will be the most ambitious in the history of the Games and is intended to reach the mountain via its southern slope, before being carried down the north side.
However, the highway project is not without controversy, with both environmental and political disputes arising from its launch.
The growing congestion of the mountain has already caused noticeable damage to the Himalayan region, with rubbish strewn around the base camp at 5,200 metres above sea level.
Meanwhile, Tibetan rights campaigners have long disputed the Chinese claim to the region, (beginning when it was occupied by the People's Liberation Army troops in 1950), with this new development likely to reignite the conflict.
The Xinhua news agency has reported that "on completion, the highway will become the major route for tourists and mountaineers who are crowding onto Mount Qomolangma, known in the west as Mount Everest, in ever larger numbers".
