Two people have been accused of using an excavator to demolish part of the Great Wall of China to create a shortcut

• Two people have been accused of using an excavator to demolish part of the Great Wall of China.

• The Chinese government has arrested the couple, CNN reported.

• It is the latest example of damage to a historic site after a Tourist defaced Rome’s Colosseum.

The Chinese government has reportedly arrested two people accused of using an excavator to demolish part of the Great Wall of China.

The country’s police arrested a 38-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman after receiving reports in late August that someone had created a gap in one of China’s most famous historic structures. CNN reported on Monday, citing CCTV, the Chinese state broadcaster.

According to CNN, the couple reportedly wanted to cut a path through the Ming Dynasty section of the wall as a shortcut. The damage had compromised the structural integrity of this part of the Great Wall of China and was “irreparable,” the state-run newspaper said China Daily reported.

According to CNN, the incident happened in northeast China’s Shanxi province.

The earliest sections of the Great Wall of China, which stretches 4,000 miles across China, were first documented in the third century BC. created. Later parts were added over the following centuries. The Wall was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.

The Wall has faced numerous sources of destruction in recent years, from careless tourists to desertification to the climate crisis. A 2008 article in Smithsonian Magazine quoted experts who claimed up to two-thirds of the wall was either destroyed or damaged by this point.

This summer’s damage to the Great Wall of China is the latest example of a world historic landmark being intentionally damaged. In June, a tourist from the UK used a key to engrave The names of him and his companion were engraved on a brick wall in the Colosseum in Rome.

The Colosseum-goers later wrote an apology letterHe said he was unaware of the age of the monument, whose construction began in the first century AD under the Roman Emperor Vespasian.

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