Half of the Dunhuang Mogao Caves in northwest China's Gansu Province, need to be repaired due to the terrible environment in the desert area and severe damage from previous foreign explorers in the early 20th century. The repair work is difficult and extensive, yet slowly progressing. A repair technician's workload is only 0.3 square meters a day. However, they are not very optimistic: "Not surprisingly, we can only say that the repair will be maintained for just 10 years," according to the report from Southern Weekly.

The repair procedure is just similar to a surgery. A technician carefully uses the tools to compress the wet part of the rock. Similar technology has been used in the previous repair work in Cave 85. Qiao Hai is a repair technician who has been working in Mogao Caves for 11 years. He is very sensitive about the "pain" of the caves, and aware of the vulnerability of the priceless treasures.

Cave 98, a relatively large one, includes nearly 700 square meters of murals. The "disease" of the murals was assessed before the repair work was conducted. In Cave 98, the scaffolding is 15 meters long, 13 meters wide, and has 4 levels.

The repair work has been carried out for two years in Cave 98, and the project has progressed quickly. If everything goes well, the famous Cave will be completely "cured" by 2012. The repair techniques used in the Mogao Caves have also been used on the Potala Palace.

(CRIENGLISH.com November 20, 2010)