• Society

Cambodia restores Buddha statues at Bakan tower of famed Angkor Wat

• By Xinhua News Agency
• February 9, 2022 5:56 PM

The Buddha statues in Bakan tower were damaged by natural factors and bats' urine, a source of moisture and salinity.

PHNOM PENH, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Apsara National Authority (ANA) is restoring another three Buddha statues at Bakan tower of the famed Angkor Wat in the northwestern Siem Reap province after the previous one was restored, the authority said has said.

Soy Sophearin, technical officer with the ANA's Department of Conservation of Monuments and Preventive Archeology, said the restoration project of the Buddha statues began in early February and is scheduled to be completed within five months.

"The Buddha statues in Bakan tower had been damaged by natural factors and bats' urine, a source of moisture and salinity," he said.

Cambodian experts will remove an old net and replace it with a new one in order to prevent bats from entering the structure, Sophearin said, expressing hope that the bats will no longer be able to stay at the location when the restoration is completed.

In November last year, the experts also completed the restoration of a ruined Buddha statue in the south of the Bakan tower, he added.

The 401-square km Angkor Archeological Park, inscribed on the World Heritage List of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1992, is the kingdom's most popular tourist destination.

During the pre-COVID-19 era, the site received up to 2.2 million international tourists in 2019, earning a gross revenue of 99 million U.S. dollars in ticket sales.

Amid the pandemic, the site received 12,873 foreign visitors in 2021, down 96.8 percent year-on-year, the Angkor Enterprise said, adding that it earned 528,121 dollars in ticket sales last year, down 97 percent.