- Police in northwest China received praise for digging sand with bare hands to find a lost phone
- The incident occurred at Singing Sand Dunes, a famous tourist site in Gansu province
- Officers arrived within four minutes and recovered the phone after a thorough search
A group of police officers in northwestern China has received widespread praise online after they dug through sand with their bare hands to recover a tourist's lost mobile phone, reported the South China Morning Post. The incident involved a Taiwan tourist, surnamed Tsao, who lost her phone at around 11 pm on May 15 at the Singing Sand Dunes tourist site in Dunhuang, Gansu province.
The Singing Sand Dunes is a well-known tourist attraction in China. The shifting sand produces a humming sound when the wind blows. The area is also home to the Crescent Moon Spring, a natural oasis named after its crescent shape.
According to Tsao, the site was dark and cold at night when she realised her phone was missing. The soft sand made the search difficult because the device could sink deeper as people walked over the area. Strong winds could also move the sand and shift lost items from their original locations.
She said she had almost lost hope while waiting with staff members for police assistance. However, the officers arrived within four minutes.
After learning the approximate location of the missing phone, two officers from the tourist site immediately began searching.
The officers repeatedly bent down and dug through the sand with their bare hands in an effort to find the device.
One of the officers, Shang Yingjun, eventually felt a phone strap near the top of a sand dune and successfully recovered the phone.
Officers work in challenging conditions, enduring intense summer heat during the day and cold winds at night. They can reach the peak of the dunes in about 10 minutes, while ordinary tourists usually take around 30 minutes.
Police officers often walk between 30,000 and 40,000 steps a day while helping visitors.
So far this year, they have recovered 260 lost items, including mobile phones, car keys and wedding rings. In just one year, tourists have presented them with more than 100 thank-you pennants.
The officers use different methods to locate missing belongings. They can use a phone's built-in GPS to narrow the search area and may also use metal detectors. In some cases, they search manually with their bare hands.
In 2025, a tourist contacted the police about a phone that had been lost in the sand six months earlier. The officers replied that the device had already been found.
