The Eastern Mausoleum of the Qing ruling house has been listed as a world cultural heritage. It is considered as the largest and most complete royal mausoleum ever to exist in China so far.

During the last century, some tomb robbers destroyed the cultural relics preserved there. Recently, the precious world heritage suffered from mine exploitation activities. Since abundant iron resources were discovered underground, many illegal mine explorers recently have come to the Eastern Mausoleum to excavate iron ores.

Recently, this reporter paid three visits to the Eastern Mausoleum and found that the world cultural heritage site had suffered great damage.

The Eastern Mausoleum is located in Malanyu County of Zunhua City in Hebei. It has a history of 330 years. It is said that the location of the tomb was chosen by Shunzhi Emperor in the Qing Dynasty. Five emperors, 15 empresses and 141 imperial concubines in the Qing Dynasty were buried there.

In 1961, the Eastern Mausoleum was selected as one of the first batch national cultural preservation sites. In 2000, it was selected as a world cultural heritage site.

During the last visit to the Eastern Mausoleum the reporter, disguised as an iron ore dealer, found the mausoleum had suffered from great damage. Mine explorers had destroyed all the plantation in the eastern slope of Shashan, a location which is just 200 meters away from the Hui Mausoleum where Tongzhi Emperor and Xiaozhe Empress were buried. The Shaoxi Mausoleum, where Xiaozhuang Empress was buried, was also been destroyed by tomb raiders. In less than 1,000 meters near the Shaoxi Mausoleum, miners had built two pits. They had used explosives to explore the iron resources there. As a result, the ground buildings nearby might have been seriously damaged, the surface ground might have sunken and underground water penetrated into the tomb.

To make things worse, both Hui and Shaoxi mausoleums have remained intact. It is very probable that miners might invade into the tomb to rob the treasures inside.

(Chinanews.cn June 4, 2007)