Global Times - 30.07.2019

6 Tuesday July 30, 2019

FOCUS

Thirty-eight people were found

died, and 13 remained missing

from a landslide in Shuicheng

county of Liupanshui city,

Southwest China’s Guizhou

Province as of Monday, the

Xinhua News Agency reported

on Monday.

Victims were identifi ed

through household regis-

tration, case reports from

dependents, DNA comparison,

and public security database,

according to the report.

According to the authority,

77 people of 22 households

have been aff ected by the

disaster.

The landslide took place

on the evening of July 23 and

buried 21 houses.

Right after the landslide,

247 fi refi ghters and 351

rescue workers were sent to

the site for a carpet search

with security arrangements,

Shang Yong, Vice Minister of

Emergency Management, said

at a media briefi ng hosted by

China’s State Council Informa-

tion Offi ce on Monday.

Disaster relief tents, folding

beds, clothes and lighting were

dispatched to the disaster area,

Shang said.

Ma Dongtao, a research

fellow at the Chengdu-based

Institute of Mountain Hazards

and Environment under the

Chinese Academy of Sciences,

said that the deterioration of

the geological environment

and inappropriate human

activity may have caused the

landslides, according to the

Beijing News.

Natural factors include an

earthquake and heavy rain,

while human behavior in-

cludes road building, mining,

deforestation on the slopes,

and vibrations caused by min-

ing explosives.

A 30-million-yuan ($4.

million) disaster relief fund

has been allocated by the min-

istries of fi nance and emer-

gency management, reported

Xinhua.

Global Times

38 people dead, 13 missing from landslide in Southwest China

Page Editor:

[email protected]

By Xu Keyue in Dunhuang

T

he more than 1,000-year-old

Mogao Grottoes of 735 caves in

Dunhuang, Northwest China’s

Gansu Province is a UNESCO World

Cultural Heritage site.

Each cave has Buddha statues and

wall paintings illustrating the lives

and religions of people from diff er-

ent dynasties, carrying historical and

cultural value. Due to old age, chang-

ing weather and booming tourism,

it suff ers from diff erent levels of

deterioration.

Cave repairing requires scientifi c

techniques, skills and long years of

dedication, which may take 10 years to

repair a cave. Despite the diffi culties,

more than 80 scientists have been

working many years to repair and

preserve the grottoes.

Deteriorating treasure

Due to the weak cemented cliff ,

weathering and human activities over

1,000 years, multiple types of geo-

logical deteriorations have appeared.

Meanwhile, the surface of the cliff has

become fragile.

Gravel and sand would fall from

the caves, threatening the safety of the

cultural heritage as well as visitors.

“In the past 100 years, most of the

damage has been done by nature, but

visits by more tourists will break the

original balance inside the caves,” said

Wang Xudong, former president of

Dunhuang Academy, now director and

curator of the Forbidden City.

Constant entrance and exit, and

changes in temperature and humidity

inside the caves have caused deteriora-

tion. Human bodies also carry micro-

organisms, and if they start to grow

inside the caves, it would be devastat-

ing for these murals, media reported.

A total of 33,485 tourists visited the

caves in the May Day holiday in 2019,

a new high for the same period since

the grottoes adopted tourist-limiting

regulations in 2014, and an increase

of 69 percent from 2018, according to

the website of the academy.

High-tech protection

The academy made laboratory cab-

ins for simulation tests to develop ma-

terials to protect the murals, China’s

fi rst such laboratory.

Integrated with real-time monitor

technology, big data analysis and the

cloud networking synchronization,

a “house-sized” laboratory where the

environment simulates rain, wind and

illumination can hold a large grotto

block, Guo Qinglin, the director of the

protection department of Dunhuang

Academy, told the Global Times.

The scientists will observe whether

the cultural relics painted with protect-

ing materials would change under

diff erent environments and whether

the relics’ aging would speed.

“We have tested the laboratory and

plan to offi cially use it in August or

September,” Guo said.

The experiment helps the scien-

tists determine

which protecting

materials work

better.

“In the past,

we had always

taken experiments

on small samples of

the relics, but found

some protecting materials

which worked well in the samples

actually not eff ective in the caves. We

prefer to test the materials on the

scene,” Guo said.

Beyond developing materials to

block murals from degradation, moni-

toring the grottoes’ condition in real

time is also important, Wang Xiaowei,

director of the monitoring department

of the academy, told the Global Times.

“We set surveillance cameras and

use drones to monitor the fl ow of

wind, temperature, humidity and car-

bon dioxide in the caves,” Wang said.

The grottoes were temporarily

closed to tourists on July 6 and 17 due

to heavy rain. “The rain caused the

humidity of the grottoes to rise and if

the monitor fi nds the relative humidity

exceeding about 60 percent, the grot-

toes will be closed temporarily, “said

Wang.

Digitization

As ancient murals in the grottoes

are in danger of disintegrating, scien-

tists are desperately trying to digitize

the important relics before they are

gone forever.

The digitized Mogao caves, e-dun-

huang.com, has become popular in

the fi eld of cultural relic preservation.

On the site, anyone from around the

world can view 360-degree panoramas

of the caves as they

virtually navigate

around in high

resolution without

actually setting foot

in the caves.

Thirty caves are

available online, with

more caves coming as

digital scanning continues.

International cooperation

Since 1989, the Getty Conserva-

tion Institute (GCI) in the US has

been working with the Dunhuang

Academy (DA) on conservation at the

Mogao Grottoes. The fi rst fi ve years

of collaboration addressed site-related

issues. Since 1997, the collaboration

has focused on the conservation of

wall paintings at the site but also on

training and visitor management, ac-

cording to the GCI website.

Chinese and Japanese researchers

are working to “clone” statues and

murals at more than 100 grottoes to

save the ancient works of art from

the teeming number of visitors to the

site each year, Japanese media Asahi

Shinbun reported.

The academy has also cooperated

with experts from Oxford Univer-

sity on monitoring and repairing the

weathering caves since 2017.

The academy and Kyrgyz authori-

ties have been working together to

protect, digitize and present their

fi ndings in archaeological missions in

Kyrgyzstan since 2017. It was the fi rst

such cooperation between the acad-

emy and a central Asian country along

the ancient Silk Road in response to

the Belt and Road Initiative, Xinhua

News Agency reported.

u High technology, international

cooperation benefi t Mogao Grottoes

Top: Scientists repair the mural of Mogao Grottoes.

Main: A simulation test laboratory cabin used to protect the Mogao Grottoes Photos: Courtesy of Dunhuang Academy