Taklimakan, the largest desert in China and one of the largest moving ones in the world, has got a 14-cm deposit of snow due to consecutive snowing since December 18.

Light snow fell in southern Xinjiang over the past eight days, while the Mongolian Autonomous Prefecture of Bayingolin and Aksu County recorded moderate snow.

"Taklimakan has had snow every year since the Xinjiang Regional Meteorological Bureau set up a monitoring station in the desert in the 1990s, but the recorded precipitation has been light. It is rare for the desert to have such a heavy snow," said Lu Guoying, an expert at the regional meteorological bureau.

The Taklimakan Desert, known as a "sea of death", is located in the center of the Tarim Basin south of Xinjiang's Tianshan Mountains. It is 1,000 km from west to east and 400 km from north to south, covering a total area of 327,000 square km.

(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2002)