KRASNOYARSK. Dec 18 (Interfax-AVN) - The Siberian regional center of the Russian Emergencies Ministry has prepared a pontoon bridge for transportation to Dushanbe, chief of the center Lieutenant General Pavel Popov said on Tuesday.
The bridge will span the Tajik and Afghan banks of the Panj River, Popov told Interfax-Military News Agency.
"A set of pontoon equipment with three special boats is loaded on 14 railway platforms that are expected to leave for Tajikistan late on Tuesday," he said. The platforms are awaiting departure at the Bugach station in the Krasnoyarsk territory.
The bridge will connect the Nizhny Pyandzh locality in Tajikistan and the port of Sherhan Bandar in Afghanistan. "The launch of the bridge across the Panj will help achieve a considerable increase in the volume of humanitarian aid that is delivered to Afghanistan from the Tajik territory," Popov said.
The ferry operating on the Panj transports an average of 20 automobiles a day to Afghanistan. As a result, "cargo is transported to Afghanistan slower than it is accumulated at stocks of the Tajik Emergencies Ministry," Popov noted. As much as 26,000 of cargo are stocked there already, he said.
Establishment of the pontoon bridge will make it possible to deliver sufficient humanitarian aid to inland Afghanistan. A new route has been tried by 20 KamAZ trucks that transported over 80t of humanitarian cargo from Dushanbe to Bagram.