Star Wars City Doomed By Sand Dunes

An anonymous reader writes "The buildings and set of the fictional city Mos Espa are set to be swallowed by migrating sand dunes in the Tunisian desert. From the article: 'Ralph Lorenz, from Johns Hopkins University, US, together with Jason Barnes, from the University of Idaho, and Nabil Gasmi, of the University of Sousse, Tunisia, visited the Mos Espa site in 2009, and noted that part of a nearby set used in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope had already been overrun. Using satellite images of the site, they were able to determine the speed of dune movement, which is approaching the buildings once inhabited by such luminaries as Anakin, his slave owner Watto, and rival podracer Sebulba.'"

Why was the set left?

[thorbsd]

Why was the set left in the desert? Was the film crew asked to leave it, or could they just be bothered to spend money removing their trash when they were finished shooting?

Re:Duned, not Doomed

[guttentag]

Dunes don't move that quickly. It took a few years.

Re:And then in a thousand years

[tibman]

I thought it was normal for construction workers to take dumps all over the property and unfinished buildings?

Re:those horrible prequels

[Tablizer]

Bad StarWars is like bad pizza; it's better than no pizza and I still finish it.

Re: or watch the movie? more documents than people

[AJH16]

Because that is totally different from news reporting today...