Two people have been detained for digging through a section of the Great Wall of China. - CHINA POLICE NETWORK/WEIBO
BEIJING (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): What do you do when you hit a wall in life? Knocking it down was the answer for two people who rammed an excavator through the Great Wall of China to create a shortcut for their machine.
Police in Youyu county in northern Shanxi province said they were alerted to the damage on Aug 24 after receiving multiple reports about a huge gap in a section of the Great Wall known as the 32nd Great Wall.
Youyu police said in a statement that a 38-year-old man, surnamed Zheng, and a 55-year-old woman, surnamed Wang, were detained after investigations found that they had used an excavator to widen a gap in the wall to let the machine pass through in order to save on travel time for their construction work nearby.
In doing so, said the police, the pair have caused “irreversible damage to the integrity of the Great Wall from the Ming Dynasty and to the safety of the cultural relics”.
Declared a Unesco World Heritage site in 1987, the Great Wall, which spans more than 20,000km, was built intermittently over 2,000 years on the northern border of the country as fortifications to ward off incursions.
With the first stone laid in the 3rd century BC, various dynasties went on to expand the bulwark up until the 17th century AD, turning the Great Wall into the architectural wonder it is known today.
The 32nd Great Wall, which got its name from the 32nd beacon tower along the meandering ancient walls, is one of the few surviving sections dating back to the Ming Dynasty from 1368 to 1644.
