Some of them cannot be restored.
A large-scale fire broke out on Easter Island, which damaged famous stone idols, moai. According to the BBC, some of them are so charred that they cannot be restored.
On Easter Island there are about 1,000 such monoliths, the height of which is four to 10 meters. Moai were created by a Polynesian tribe 500 years ago.
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According to Carolina Heritage Official Perez Dattari, the fire that broke out on Monday covered almost 60 hectares. It was the result of arson, and the center of the fire was the Rano Raku volcano, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The mayor of the island, Pedro Edmunds, told local media that “the damage caused by the fire cannot be compensated.”
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Located 3,500 kilometers off the coast of Chile, Easter Island depends on tourism and only reopened to tourists three months ago after a shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the island was again closed to visitors to assess the effects of the fire and the damage caused by it.
In the social pages of the park, it is emphasized that “the moai are completely charred”.
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Previously scientists from Binghamton University of the State of New York, Cambridge and the International Institute of Archaeological Research in Honolulu said that the main theory of the decline of the Easter Island civilization may be a myth. The researchers built four models, none of which supported the idea that that the population of the island experienced a demographic crisis before the arrival of Europeans.
