A panoramic view of a partly dried pool of polluted water and sewage in the Tengger Desert in Alashan, North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, on August 29. Photo: IC

Part of the Tengger Desert, China's fourth largest desert, has become seriously polluted because factories have discharged significant amounts of polluted water into it without any treatment.

The Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, sharing the desert on their borders, both built industrial zones in the heart of the desert in past years, resulting in a great number of factories, many of them chemical plants. Residents in a town on the edge of the desert in Inner Mongolia, said polluted waters have been pumped into the desert ever since the factories started operations.

The factories discharge the pollutants, through pipes, over a kilometer from their premises in the middle of the desert, which results in huge pools of black, stinky water, each covering an area the size of a football pitch. The pollutants sink into the sand, as well as evaporate into the air, creating a white haze over the pools.

The dried up pollutants, looking like black sludge but giving off an unbearable smell, were directly buried beneath the sand dunes using bulldozers.

Not far from the polluted areas lies the Yellow River, just eight kilometers away at the nearest point.

Local authorities have yet to take measures to restore the desert except for recently closing one factory, and there has been no comprehensive assessment report in terms of the exact scale of the pollution damage.

Global Times

Chemical plants loom from afar as seen from the pools of pollutants. Photo: IC

A sewage pipe is seen through sand dunes in the Tengger Desert. Photo: IC

Pollutants resulting from the evaporation of polluted water are seen near a highway in the Tengger Desert in Zhongwei, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Photo: IC

 

Sewage is separated from dunes by a barrier in the Tengger Desert. Photo: IC