July 27, 2021: A 100-meter-high sand wall swallowed up a Chinese city on the shores of the Gobi Desert in northwestern China, showing scenes reminiscent of a disaster film.

Dunhuang, a tourist draw with a colourful history as a Chinese Silk Road outpost, momentarily disappeared in the dust clouds as the storm hit on Sunday.

A resident Zhang told local media Jimu News that the sandstorm came abruptly and swept through the city in five or six minutes.

“I couldn’t see the sun,” he said, adding that the city in Gansu Province had not experienced such a sandstorm in years. “At first I was wrapped in the yellow dust of a sandstorm, then it turned red and finally black.”

It took just minutes for the heavy sandstorm to wreak havoc in the ancient Chinese Silk Road city of Dunhuang in north-western China.

Wind whipped up a wall of sand, estimated to be at least 100 metres tall over the city in Gansu Province, on the edge of the Chinese Gobi Desert. The sandstorm turned the sky yellow and reduced the visibility to less than 5 metres in some areas.

Local traffic police imposed traffic controls at toll gates and directed stranded vehicles to leave the expressway and stop in the service areas. Traffic was snarled and more than 400 flights out of the capital’s two main airports were cancelled. Chinese have planted a “great green wall” of trees in an attempt to trap incoming dust in the cities near the Gobi desert.

The Chinese have also tried to create air corridors that channel the wind and allow sand and other pollutants to pass through more quickly. The actions have reduced storms intensity but the expansion of cities and industries has put constant pressure on the environment throughout China.

DunHuang is a major Chinese tourist attraction, including the Mogao Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site featuring ancient Buddhist paintings and stunning desert paintings.

According to the Chinese state-run news agency China News Service, sandstorms are common in the region every spring, but rarely in the summer.

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