Tourists leave damaging mark at ancient site

Tourists are now competing with tomb raiders and climate change to destroy the remains of the ancient Loulan (Kroraina) Kingdom in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, locals and historians said yesterday.

A group of 12 foreign tourists were even recently spotted making their way deep into the heart of no man's land in Lop Nur to the 2,000-year-old site - which also happens to be a State-level cultural heritage area and barred from visitors - where they helped themselves to pottery shards and even urinated against the ancient walls, the People's Daily reported yesterday.

Lop Nur, a region near the Gobi Desert covering 3,000 sq kilometers where even flies find difficulty surviving, used to be a treacherous place known as China's Bermuda Triangle.