Two men die after losing GPS in world’s largest sand desert
Two men have died after getting lost in a Saudi Arabian desert so vast it’s called the Empty Quarter.
Sand stretches for 250,000 square miles in Rubʿ al-Khali, the largest area of continuous sand on earth, where dunes reach up to 2,000ft high.
Despite vast oil fields underground, the world’s largest sand desert is almost entirely uninhabited and mostly unexplored.
It’s served mainly by the world’s longest straight road – Saudi Arabia’s 256km-long Highway 10. GPS is essential for navigating off road.
But telecommunications worker Mohammad Shehzad Khan, 27, and a colleague lost signal while driving through the desert a week ago, India’s NDTV reported.
Things were already bad with no way to find the route out of a desert where temperatures pass 40°C in daytime.
But Khan’s phone battery then died, leaving them with no way to call for help when the car ran out of fuel.
They were stranded with no food or water.
Both their bodies were found covered in sand beside their vehicle on Thursday, four days after they were last seen.
Indian national Khan and his unnamed Sudanese colleague had both died of dehydration and exhaustion.
Khan had moved from the south Indian state of Telangana to Saudi Arabia three years ago.
At 650km across, Rubʿ al-Khali is the largest sand desert in the world. Although the Sahara is the largest hot desert, it’s made up of numerous smaller sand deserts broken by mountains and shrublands.
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