A fire on Easter Island caused an “irreparable” damage in about 80 moai, the iconic stone statues erected throughout this Chilean island territory in the Pacific Ocean. It was the mayor of Rapa Nui, Pedro Edmunds Paoa, who declared that the high temperatures generated the fire that attacked the sculptures and accelerated the process that would eventually turn the stone into sand.
On the island located in the center of the South Pacific there are about 800 moai, of which almost half remain in a quarry located inside the Rano Raraku volcano, where centuries ago a Polynesian culture sculpted the gigantic statues that led to Rapa Nui – Island Easter was declared World Heritage Site in 1995.
Edmunds Paoa stated that the fire that this week it devastated 104 hectares of grass has mainly damaged a sector of the quarry inside the crater where there are about 100 semi-buried moais. “20% are affected” He added. On the outer slopes of the Rano Raraku volcano there are also some burnt stone giants.
Regarding the type of damage suffered by the structures, he explained that the high temperatures calcined the stone, which instead of breaking “cracks” and over time “disintegrates, accelerates the process of transforming stone into sand” he told the local Cooperative radio. He stated that the material and cultural damage “it is irrecoverable, even immeasurable”.
As for the causes of the fire, he said those responsible are the horse and cow farmers who regularly burn the grasslands on an island.
After Ninoska Huki, local head of the National Forestry Corporation (Conaf), admitted that there is no brigade to fight the fires, the mayor complained about what he considered abandonment by the state. “Accident and fire prevention work is a resource-demanding prevention plan and it is not there,” said Edmunds Paoa.
The National Monuments Council of the South American country is conducting research to measure the extent of the impact on the 163 square kilometer island inhabited by about 7,700 people who live 3,700 kilometers from the south of the American continent.
The island is known worldwide for its moai, four meter high stone statues carved with a head and part of the torso whose weight is estimated at around 14 tons. Since 2019 Easter Island has been officially renamed “Rapa Nui-Easter Island” At the request of the Council of Elders, your ancestral authority.
The fire occurred two months after the island reopened to tourism after two and a half years of closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Before the pandemic, Easter Island, whose main livelihood is tourism, it received around 160,000 visitors a year, through two daily flights. But, with the arrival of covid-19 in Chile, the tourist activity was completely suspended.
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Source: Clarin
