Remote section of China’s Great Wall damaged by 20 years of mine waste dumping
While foreign leaders and their families walk the iconic restored sections of the Great Wall around Beijing, the ancient stones of a remote Ming-era stretch of the structure in northern central China have been sacrificed for cheaper dumping of coal-mining waste. For nearly 20 years, a section of the wall in Ningwu county, Shanxi province, was used as a short cut to dump slag, despite…
A remote stretch of the ancient Great Wall in northern China has been damaged for nearly two decades by the dumping of coal-mining waste. The Guojiayao section, part of the Ming-era wall in Ningwu county, Shanxi province, was used as a shortcut for waste disposal starting in 2007. Local authorities failed to respond to repeated reports of the damage, allowing a six-meter gap to form in the wall.
Despite legislation enacted in 2006 to protect the structure, boundary posts were not installed along the affected section until 2025. The negligence extended beyond Guojiayao, with similar damage reported in other sections of the Great Wall in Ningwu due to unmonitored mining activities. The provincial authorities only took action after persistent public complaints and media coverage, fining the coal company a total of 1 million yuan for illegal mining and heritage destruction.
Local officials have vowed to implement emergency repairs, structural reinforcements, and ecological restoration, while also investigating past negligence and duty breaches to strengthen long-term protection mechanisms for the iconic UNESCO World Heritage site.
Written by urgent.news from South China Morning Post's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
