A 17-meter long section of Pingyao Ancient Town's historic wall, a world cultural heritage site in Shanxi Province, collapsed on October 17. The investigation is now complete and restoration in progress.

Li Shusheng, the deputy director of Pingyao's Cultural Relics Bureau, said the collapse had three causes: soil was too loose to support the wall and construction workers 600 years ago had failed to tamp it hard enough, internal bricks were not up to standard, and the middle of the wall was thinner than the top and bottom, a sign of poor brickwork.

But many local people aren't satisfied, as a local dweller said: if the problem was its construction 600 years ago, why hasn't it collapsed before?

Zhao Changben, the veteran specialist on the ancient walls and the former deputy superintendent of Pingyao's Cultural Relics Administrative Office accepts Li's explanation. He said the ancient wall has had 26 restorations since being built. Most of those were of a high quality except that in 1850 when the ruler's aim was defending the Taiping Rebellion -- they just added to the height of the walls without reinforcing them.

Zhao said the intrusion of Japanese troops caused more destruction: six gate towers were demolished to be replaced by army pillboxes, and four corner towers were razed to the ground. In the "Cultural Revolution" many air-raid shelters were built underground, which directly caused the large-scale collapse after a flood in 1977 involving 950 meters wall in 34 places.

The ancient walls were restored in 1979, but only the most seriously affected western and northern gates, not the southern gate.

Dong Peiliang, the retired vice president of the Pingyao County Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference who first proposed that Pingyao's residents be resettled, said more than half of them had moved out but some factories remained and even used the walls for storage, which could also have affected them.

There is a rumor among local people that the county government decided to exploit tourism at the southern gate, since it's the nearest gate to the newly constructed Dayun highway (from Datong to Yuncheng). They approved a project without the permission of Jinzhong Cultural Relics Bureau that caused subsidence.

Zhang Bai, vice director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH), said, "Although the main problems owe to the groundsill made hundreds of years ago, the investigation work group won't deny problems in the management of the local cultural relics department."

Gu Yucai, director of the Cultural Relics Protection Department of the SACH, said, "There was no outside force, like an earthquake, when the wall collapsed. So it must have been something we didn't pay attention to earlier. This shows that regular maintenance was inadequate."

Almost all the officials agree that a lack of money meant there was insufficient examination and maintenance of the site.

Since becoming a world heritage site, Pingyao has attracted many tourists who have spent a lot of money there. According to regulations, income from tickets should all have been used for the protection of the walls.

Gucheng Travel Ltd. was founded in 2002 with the help of the county government, who transferred managerial authority of all cultural relics sites to them.

Ruan Yisan, a professor at Tongji University and director of China's History and Cultural City Research Center, said world heritage status should not be used to exploit travel resources but to recognize and preserve cultural treasures.

The good news is that maintenance work on the walls will be finished in the spring of next year, but the incident has raised many questions about how such important sites are maintained  -- and for what purpose.

(China.org.cn by Chen Lin, December 14, 2004)