In north-west China, desert sands are swallowing up farmland and towns. Mingqin is a shrinking oasis area that government advisers privately describe as an "ecological disaster area", and yet eco-refugees have been resettled here because their home environments became no longer fit for habitation. Villagers must battle the encroaching desert that is destroying their homes and their crops
Tue 19 May 2009 00.05 BST First published on Tue 19 May 2009 00.05 BST
Satellite view of the Yellow river's middle basin with Minqin County area circled. To the east of it is the Tengger desert and to the north-west is the Badain Juran desert. The Yellow river flows at the south of it. The large lake to the south of the mountains is Lake Qinghai
Boats rest on the bottom of a dried reservoir in Minqin County. The area is suffering from the most serious drought as most parts of China have seen continuous rainfalls recently. The oasis will shrink and eventually disappear if the drought continues
An abandoned house facing the approaching desert in Minqin. All 364 villagers moved out of the village after the desert expanded into nearby farm fields. The 87,000 hectares of forest planted in the past 10 years, an effort to curb the desert expansion, withered and died in vast stretches due to a reduction of the groundwater level and water supply difficulties in Minqin. Only a little more than 20,000 hectares survived
A Chinese farmer walks amid a heavy sand storm in Minqin County, north-west of China's Gansu province. A cold front is forecast to hit China in the next three days, bringing a chill to the north and strong rains to the south, according to the China Meteorological Administration (CMA)
Plumes of dust sweep across the Tengger desert in north-central China. Hemmed by the Qilian mountains in the south and the Yellow river in the east, the desert forms the southern border of Inner Mongolia. Though not visible, the Great Wall of China runs through this image between the Tengger and the mountains in the south. The large lake to the south of the mountains is Lake Qinghai
Villagers water sacsaoul trees in Minqin County, north-west China's Gansu Province. The county fenced about 8,667 hectares of sand land and artificially afforested other 4,500 hectares in 2008. The county planned to artificially reafforest some 5,400 hectares of sand land this year
