The 42 tourists, most of them college students, are all from Chinese national capital. They belong to three self-organized groups attempting to wade through the Hobq Desert, a stretch of 16,100 sq kms of shifting sand dunes.

Police at the Hangjin Banner (county) received the first call from tourists at 4:10 p.m. Wednesday. Twenty minutes later, another group of tourists called police in Beijing and provided their GPS position.

The first group of tourists were spotted by rescuers at around 02:00 a.m. Thursday, whereas the last group of 12 were rescued three hours later.

The only tourist who died is identified by her Internet name as Xiaoqian, 27, who is working for IBM company, the report said.

Xiaoqian vomited Wednesday afternoon due to heliosis, the report said, adding that she might have been choked by her own vomit.

Police in Inner Mongolia has urged China's increasingly adventurous tourists to exercise prudence before hitting road.

In another development, on May Day, 13 college students from Tianjin got lost in the same desert and, fortunately, all of them were rescued. Enditem