Chile’s Easter Island fire has caused permanent damage to several of its iconic stone statues
- The high temperature of a forest fire this week has accelerated the process through which the stone carvings will eventually turn into sand, the island’s mayor said
- The Chilean island that lies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean has some 800 of the statues, known as moais, half of which are inside the Rano Raraku volcano
A fire that ripped through part of Chile’s Easter Island this week has caused permanent damage to some of its iconic carved stone figures known as moai, authorities said.
The high temperature of the forest fire accelerated the process through which the stone carvings will eventually turn into sand, the mayor of the island locally known as Rapa Nui said.
The damage is “irreparable and immeasurable as well,” Mayor Pedro Edmunds Paoa said.
The Chilean island that lies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean has some 800 moais, half of which are inside the Rano Raraku volcano.
The fire this week blazed through 104 acres and particularly affected an area inside the volcano where there are around 100 moais, around 20 per cent of which have been damaged, Edmunds Paoa said. There are also some damaged structures outside the volcano.
The high temperatures calcinate the stone of the moais, which leads it to “crack” and with time “it starts to collapse,” Edmunds Paoa told a local radio station.