NEW DELHI -- China is building a second bridge that can accommodate tanks and other armored vehicles across a lake in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, spiking tensions along its border with India two years after a deadly skirmish in the area.

Ladakh has been a subject of discord between the countries for decades. New Delhi has also built roads that can support heavy vehicles in the region and has said it is ready to continue constructing infrastructure.

The first bridge China built across the disputed Lake Pangong Tso is 400 meters long and 8 meters wide, according to security and defense sources cited by Indian media. Its construction activity was initially confirmed in January.

The second bridge across the lake crosses the Line of Actual Control, the de facto border between the two countries.

Both bridges are "in areas that have continued to be under the illegal occupation of China since the 1960s," Arindam Bagchi, a spokesperson for the External Affairs Ministry said. "We have never accepted such illegal occupation of our territory, nor have we accepted the unjustified Chinese claim or such construction activities."

The two sides have held rounds of talks between commanders who are stationed in the region, but tensions have yet to ease. Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has called his country's ties with China "not normal."

"We have made clear that the state of our relations cannot be divorced from the state of the border," Jaishankar said last month at a Nikkei forum .

China and India share a poorly defined border stretching some 3,000 km. The clash in June 2020 is said to have resulted in dozens of deaths on both sides. A total of around 100,000 troops from the two sides are stationed in the disputed regions.