Remote section of China’s Great Wall damaged by 20 years of mine waste dumping

While foreign leaders and their families walk the iconic restored sections of the Great Wall around Beijing, the ancient stones of a remote Ming-era stretch of the structure in northern central China have been sacrificed for cheaper dumping of coal-mining waste.

For nearly 20 years, a section of the wall in Ningwu county, Shanxi province, was used as a short cut to dump slag, despite whistle-blowers repeatedly raising the alarm to officials, according to a report by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

The damage to the Great Wall’s Guojiayao section began in 2007, when an unlicensed miner, Ningwu Chaokai Coal Industry, dug a trench through the structure as a way to dispose of excavation waste, the report said.

In 2013, Shenda Chaokai Coal Industry was established through the consolidation of multiple mining teams and continued using the breach to dump slag, bypassing the long mountain roads.