Hong Kong
Cnn
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Visitors to a centennial tourist site in eastern China were sent to a break after hundreds of roof tiles have broken and broke more than two floors on the ground.
The Fengyang drum tower – built in 1375 and used to announce the start of ceremonies and the time of day – is one of the largest towers of this type in China, according to the state media.
The tower is a major tourist attraction in the province of Anhui, which is about 200 miles from Beijing, the Chinese capital.
But Monday, the calm around the site was broken while hundreds of roof tiles began to slide from the roof and crash into the ground, raising a huge cloud of gray brown dust.
“The drop in tiles lasted a minute or two,” an eyewitness at Yangcheng Evening News, a state -controlled newspaper, told Yangcheng Evening.
Another witness described how he heard the crisp sound of a tile falling after the other of a store at the entrance to the drum tower.
“There was no one in the place and no one was injured,” he told State Media Out the Beijing News.
“If it happened a little later, there would be many children (near the tower) after dinner.”
The Local Office of Culture and Tourism said that no victim had been reported and that the “situation was the subject of an investigation”.
The collapse occurred only one year after the renovation of the tower after minor damage to the roof.
However, the building consists of two parts: the original Tower base of the Ming era and the tower above. Damage has mainly arrived at the latter, which was rebuilt in 1995, according to local officials.
The County of Fengyang is famous for its history and culture, and was the hometown of Zhu Yuanzhang (the Emperor Hongwu), founder of the Ming dynasty.
He supervised a prosperous era fed by a strong international trade and an increasing population.
Meanwhile, China has replaced its traditional money of silver and gold with paper money.
