Xinjiang Album ‌⑲ | How one canal defied a desert

If images could remember, they would recall Qira's bitterest days: windblown sand was so relentless that people were swallowing dust all day long, and even at night, they could not escape it. If echoes could speak, they would carry the roar of ten thousand voices rising as one at the foot of the Kunlun Mountains — a single order, a single will.

The first shovel broke ground in 1960. The first water rushed through in 1990. And today, smart technology guides its every drop. That is the story of thirty years and one canal. The Zhandou Canal is more than water. It is the spine of three generations of Qira people, standing unbroken in the Gobi. Where water advances, people advance. Where sand retreats, people advance. And the will to fight the elements still flows ceaselessly as the mountain waters at the foot of the Kunlun Mountains.

Producer: Wang Hong

Executive Producers: Chao Jin, Yu Lei, Feng Yongfang and Jia Yongjiao

Production Supervisors: Chao Jin, Yu Lei, Liu Yang and Cheng Li

Script: Parizat Abdu

Translation/Voice: Jia Shaoqi

Productions: Li Zhennan and Jia Shaoqi

Reviewers: Zhang Shijie and Fan Feifei

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