A section of wall in the ancient city of Pingyao, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in North China's Shanxi Province, has collapsed due to lack of maintenance.
 
The 17.3 meter-long stretch, part of the South Gate enclosure in the more than 500 year-old town, collapsed Sunday afternoon, said officials with Pingyao County Cultural Relics Bureau.

Chronic lack of maintenance is believed to be the reason for the collapse, an official with the bureau named Gao said Tuesday.

"The section of ancient wall looks fine on the outside but the tamped earth inside the layer of bricks had slackened," he told China Daily. "A gust of wind can blow out dry earth from the bricks."

Most of the ancient wall had been repaired with ongoing maintenance work in recent years, Gao said, and only a small section had not been revamped. A repair team was sent to the site on Monday to inspect the collapse site.

Pingyao, a small town about 90 kilometers away from Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi, is famous for its well-preserved ancient wall. The city's history can be traced back to the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century BC-771 BC) and was placed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1997.

The present wall was built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in an unbroken rectangle with compacted earth and brick. It is 6.2 kilometers long and 10 meters high and tapers from a width of 8 to 12 meters at the bottom to 2.5 to 6 meters at the top.

Local officials said the collapse will not harm tourism because the square in front of the affected gate has been undergoing restoration since May and was closed to visitors anyway.

(China Daily October 20, 2004)