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This one running about 5 1/5 miles across a desert took 7 months. The Yimlakut Bridge is the longest of the Hotan-Ruoqiang Railway’s five bridges built over sand,

It’s part of the 513 mile railway.
The bridge covers a section of the Taklimakan Desert where sand dunes move an average of 20 meters each year, said Zhang Gang, a project manager with the China Railway 14th Bureau Group Co., Ltd., which oversees the railway’s construction.

The bridge allows sand to be blown underneath it so that trains and tracks are less impacted by sand storms, said Zhang. It’s in China’s largest desert.
The Taklamakan Desert has an area of 337,000 km (130,000 sq mi), making it slightly smaller than Germany.