Two men have been arrested after digging a hole in the Great Wall of China with an excavator to create a shorter route and reduce travel time, state CCTV reported.
Police in Shanxi province (northeast) followed the tracks left by the machines used to dig a hole in a section of the Great Wall built by Chinese emperors to prevent the entry of foreign invaders.
The detainees admitted that they used an excavator to cut a shortcut in the wall to save time during their travels, state media reported.
Construction of the wall, thousands of miles long, began in the 3rd century BC and lasted for hundreds of years.
The affected area of the Great Wall, which is nearly a six-hour drive from central Beijing, dates back to the Ming Dynasty, from the 14th to the 17th centuries.
State broadcaster CCTV said the suspects had caused “irreversible damage” to the Ming-era area, described as a “relatively intact” site of great value for research.
Source: DN
