Construction workers severely damage Great Wall of China

(Patria) - A section of China's Great Wall, one of the few structures on Earth visible from space, has been seriously damaged when construction workers broke through it with an excavator in the central province of Shanxi.

Police said they have arrested two suspects, a 55-year-old woman and a 38-year-old man, who allegedly tried to create a shortcut for construction work.

They dug a "large hole" by widening an existing cavity in the Great Wall to allow an excavator to pass through.

Police say they wanted to reduce the distance they had to travel. It is also stated that they were aware that they would cause "irreversible damage to the Great Wall and the safety of cultural relics".

Located in Youyu County, the 32nd Great Wall is part of the Ming Great Wall and is classified as a historical and cultural site protected at the provincial level.

The damage was reported on August 24 after police received reports of a huge gap in the wall.

The Great Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1987, was built and rebuilt continuously from around 220 BC to the Ming Dynasty in the 1600s, when it was the largest military structure in the world.

Much of what visitors can see today was built during the Ming Dynasty and is called the Ming Great Wall.

Some parts of the wall have been damaged or collapsed over the years, especially in remote rural areas.

According to a 2016 Beijing Times article, more than 30 percent of the Ming Great Wall has disappeared entirely, and only eight percent is considered well-preserved.