The k43-t69 train that follows China’s great northern steppes and the legendary Silk Road could be dubbed “the desertification train.” Travelling from east to west, from Beijing to Urumqi, it cuts through 3,343 kilometres of dusty grasslands, dried-up riverbeds, threatened oases, and deserts both ancient and new. A few hours after the train leaves Beijing, a lunar black mountain range welcomes passengers into a vast arid landscape.
Deserts cover 18 percent of China today. Of those, 78 percent are natural, while 22 percent were created by humans. Almost all of them lie along the k43-t69’s route through the provinces of Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu, and finally Xinjiang, at the edge of Central Asia.
Friday, November 21, 2008Bonus photos for “The Chinese Dust Bowl”
Online exclusive gallery.
INSIDE COURT OF REFUGEES HOUSES BEFORE A STORM -- Hongsibao, Ningxia -- Hongsibao and its forty-two satellite villages were created from scratch eleven years ago. Previously, only the cannons of the People's Liberation Army rolled over the soil of this immense gravel expanse. Since then, Honsibao has become the largest city of ecological refugees in China, inhabited by 200,000 peasants and herders moved there from the dry mountains.
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