By Tim Binnall
Authorities in China have detained a pair of misguided construction workers who attempted to create a shortcut for their equipment by creating a rather sizeable hole in the country's iconic Great Wall. The odd act of destruction was reportedly discovered by police late last month when they noticed that a huge gap had appeared in a portion of the historic structure located in Youyu County. How the hole wound up being made was not all that much of a mystery as cops simply had to follow some machinery tracks until they came upon a man and a woman with an excavator. When questioned by police, the unnamed suspects confessed to having created the opening by using their equipment to significantly enlarge a small hole that had already been in the wall.
As for why they would do such a thing, they offered the rather bizarre explanation that, rather than go around the legendary structure, they opted to cut through it to reduce the time it would take to get to their construction project. As one might imagine, police were not too thrilled with the pair's actions, declaring that they had done "irreversible damage to the integrity of the Ming Great Wall and to the safety of the cultural relics." The duo are currently in police custody awaiting whatever charges will likely be levied against them, which will undoubtedly and ironically delay their project for far longer than it would have taken for them to circumvented the wall.