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Two construction workers have been arrested for smashing a hole in the Great Wall of China to use as a shortcut, according to local authorities.
The Youyu County government said the men were in custody with further legal action pending, following a report of a breach in the Unesco world heritage site.
State media showed a dirt road cut through the wall against a rural landscape in Youyu County, hundreds of miles west of Beijing.
Reports said the two men, identified only by the surnames Zheng and Wang, wanted a shorter route for work they were doing in nearby towns.
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The breach was in a broken-down section of the wall, far from the restored segments familiar with tourists.
The Great Wall stretches some 8,850km (5,500 miles) and was built mainly during the Ming dynasty that lasted until 1644.
The wall was abandoned and plundered for bricks and stones by local villagers, only to be revived by the communist government as a symbol of patriotism, mass mobilisation and resistance to outside pressure.
As of 2015, figures from the Chinese government suggested that as much as 30 per cent of the original structure may have disappeared. Other parts of the wall are in poor condition because of human activity, including local residents stealing bricks to build their houses, authorities say.
China has also battled vandalism from tourists. In 2017, photographs of carvings on the wall in Chinese, English and Korean brought attention to its condition, according to local media.
In 2021, two people were banned from the site after they trespassed on to an undeveloped section of the ancient structure. And earlier this year, another man was detained for several days after he carved a name into the wall, local media said. – Agencies