A fire on Easter Island caused “irreparable” damage, damaging about 80 moai of iconic stone statues located in this Chilean island site in the Pacific Ocean, authorities said on Friday.
The fire, which devastated nearly 100 hectares of Rapa Nui National Park and has since been extinguished, affected the Rano Raraku volcano, reaching the quarry where the ancient Rapa Nui indigenous civilization built its moai. The site features 416 sculptures at different stages of construction.
“It was possible to extinguish […] President Gabriel Boric said on Friday that the fire at the quarry of the Rano Raraku volcano has caused irreparable damage to humanity’s cultural heritage.
Easter Island mayor Pedro Edmunds said at a press conference in Santiago that fire trucks were unable to access the area, which started burning on Monday due to local geography.
The mayor said the flames, smoke and water affected about dozens of moai in the quarry.
One was completely charred and “their damage is irreparable,” Edmunds said. “It will stay there until the damage is evaluated and humanity finds a solution,” he said.
Authorities are investigating the possibility that the fire was intentional.
“The fire was started by cattle breeders to clear pasture. All signs point to it,” said Agriculture Minister Esteban Valenzuela.
Edmunds warned of a lack of rangers due to budget cuts amid what he described as “island abandonment” by the central government, and attributed the rapid progress of the flames to this.
About 8,000 people live on Easter Island, located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, about 3,500 km west of the Americas.
The fire came two months after the island, which had been closed for two and a half years due to the coronavirus pandemic, reopened to tourism.
Easter Island, whose main livelihood is tourism, was receiving around 160,000 visitors a year on two flights a day before the pandemic. However, with the arrival of covid-19 in Chile, tourism activity was completely suspended.
source: Noticias
