China is mounting an all-out effort to save thousands of cultural relics damaged or destroyed in the May 12 earthquake. According to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, 139 cultural relics units under state protection, including 239 regarded as precious in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces and Chongqing municipality, have been severely damaged as a result of the magnitude-8.0 tremor.

In the worst-hit Sichuan Province, 79 of 128 cultural relics units under state protection were affected, with 1,645 pieces of cultural relics damaged, including 148 regarded as precious.

"We will gather talents from the whole country to save the cultural relics in the disaster areas," said Tong Mingkang, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage deputy head, in Sichuan on Tuesday.

A group of 20 top-notch cultural relics protection and architecture experts are investigating the damage caused to the relics in the four regions. They will set up a repair plan and begin to restore them after investigation.

"Relics restoration in the disaster area is at the top of our agenda for our bureau in the coming several years," Tong said.

The bureau will call in relic protection and architecture experts at the end of June for discussion and dispatch them to restore the relics in the four regions.

The southwestern Sichuan and northwestern Shaanxi and Gansu provinces have boasted long histories and ancient civilizations for millenniums. Many ancient buildings there, including the Dujiangyan Irrigation Project and Erwang Temple, have collapsed, ruptured, subsided or have been replaced.

The Erwang Temple, which translates into "Temple of Two Kings", was built 2,000 years ago to honor Li Bing, the then governor of Sichuan, and his son for their contribution to the construction of Dujiangyan, the world's oldest irrigation project. It is still in operation but collapsed in the quake.

"We will assess the reason for the collapse, and use the collapsed elements, such as the girders and pillars, to restore the building according to the historical record," said Lv Zhou, a Tsinghua University architecture professor currently inspecting the relics in Sichuan.

"For some buildings wholly destroyed in the tremor, we will keep them as earthquake remains for commemoration," Tong said.

Experts will reinforce those ancient architectures on the brink of collapse, Tong said.

Well-known museums in the disaster area suffered minor damage due to better designs. Two pieces of pottery in the Sanxingdui Museum, an archeological museum in Sichuan Province fell to the ground after the quake. The famous Terra Cotta Warrior Museum in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province, remained intact.

Song Xinchao, the museum department head of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, said the government should redesign the exhibition shelves in the cultural relics protection sites and museums in the earthquake belt for fear of possible future damage.

(Xinhua News Agency May 28, 2008)