Day turned to night as tons of dust blocked out (挡住) the sun and reduced visibility (能见度) to around 600 feet.But suddenly the storm calmed and the milehigh cloud settled back to the earth again,leaving villagers with a major cleanup operation.
The process of desertification has been worsened by overgrazing (过度放牧),urban expanding and an increasingly unusual climate. The Chinese Academy of Sciences estimates (估 计) that the number of sandstorms has jumped sixfold in the past 50 years to two dozen a year.Around 80 percent of them occur between March and May. True (T) or False (F).
Golmud is home to 200,000 people with 140,000 living in the city centre.The new industrial city is built on a flat area close to the borders of the Gobi desert,which is the largest desert in Asia.Although it’s not a good place to live, tens of thousands of people have relocated there to work at the salt lakes in the region.