A few years ago, the Leshan Giant Buddha started to weep, or so some locals imagined when black streaks appeared on the rose-coloured cheeks of the towering 7th-century figure, hewn from sandstone cliffs in the forests of southern China. They worried they had angered the religious icon.The culprit, it turned out, was the region’s growing number of coal-fired power plants. Their smokestacks spew toxic gases into the air, which return to earth as acid rain. Over time, the Buddha’s nose turned black and curls of hair began to fall from its head.“If this continues, the Buddha will lose its nose and even its ears,” said Li Xiao Dong, a researcher who has studied the impact of air pollution in Sichuan Province, the statue’s home. “It will become just a piece of rock.”China’s ancient buildings, tombs and stone carvings have weathered storms, invading armies and thieves. Now, they face a new threat, a by-product of the rapid economic development that has lifted so many Chinese out of poverty.More than 80 per cent of China’s 33 UN-designated World Heritage sites — including the Leshan Buddha — have been damaged by air pollution and acid rain, mostly from the burning of coal, said the Xinhua News Agency.“The level of pollution that China is creating will be devastating to these monuments,” said Melinda Herrold-Menzies, a professor of environmental studies at Pitzer College in Claremont, California.Chinese officials are starting to acknowledge the downside of unbridled development. Vice-Minister of the construction Qiu Baoxing blamed the devastation of historic sites on “senseless actions” by local officials in pursuit of modernisation, the Government-run China Daily reported in June.“They are totally unaware of the value of cultural heritage,” he said, likening the destruction to that of cultural relics during the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976.
