The director of the cultural relics protection office swam into the hall to inspect the damage. The main hall of Kaishan Temple, a millennium old temple in Hebei, was flooded. Cultural relics protection office | Gaobeidian City | male | cultural relics | building | condition | main hall
On August 6th, a video about "cultural relics workers swimming to the main hall of Kaishan Temple in Hebei to inspect the damage to the building..." attracted public attention. This 22 second video shows a shirtless man suspected of swimming towards the distant main hall in a flooded temple, with the red exterior walls surrounding the man clearly visible.
It is understood that Kaishan Temple is one of the eight surviving wooden structures of the Liao Dynasty in China, with a history of over a thousand years, and is also a national protected cultural relic unit. On August 7th, staff from the Flood Control Emergency Rescue Office in Xincheng Town, Gaobeidian City, Hebei Province, responded to upstream news reporters, saying, "Xincheng Town has been flooded, Kaishan Temple has also been closed, and our office area has been moved to Gaobeidian City. Currently, we are not familiar with the situation there." Staff from the Cultural, Radio, Television and Tourism Bureau of Gaobeidian City stated that the situation in the video is true. "The man in the video is the director of the cultural heritage preservation office. He swam in and looked at the situation of flooding, but the situation was not very good because it was all flooded and the main hall was also soaked. We are still counting the specific situation, and we will release information at that time. We will definitely carry out repairs in the future."
Subsequently, relevant staff from the cultural relics department of Gaobeidian City responded to upstream news reporters, saying, "Many villages in the area have the deepest water accumulation of four or five meters. Kaishan Temple has also been flooded. In the early stage, we followed the arrangements and deployment of the flood control headquarters, using sandbags and plastic films, and all possible reinforcement measures were adopted. However, the rain was very heavy this time, and the specific situation will have to wait for the city's flood control and rescue command center to complete the statistics before releasing the news."
According to Xinhua News Agency on April 26, 2023, after the renovation of Kaishan Temple, a national key cultural relic protection unit located in Gaobeidian City, Hebei Province, it was officially opened to visitors for free on April 25. The main hall of Kaishan Temple is one of the few surviving wooden structures of the Liao Dynasty in China, and holds an important position in the history of ancient Chinese architecture. According to the "New City County Annals", "Kaishan Ancient Temple was built during the Tang Dynasty." During the Republic of China period, the Construction Society conducted an investigation of Kaishan Temple and concluded that the main hall of Kaishan Temple was a relic of the Liao Dynasty. In 1955, ancient architecture expert Qi Yingtao led a team to conduct a detailed survey of the main hall of Kaishan Temple and inferred that the building age of the main hall of Kaishan Temple was built between the Liao Dynasty.
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Kaishan Temple in Hebei was flooded, and the National Cutural Heritage Administration sent personnel to study and judge
The reporter learned from the National Cutural Heritage Administration that the Hebei Kaishan Temple Cultural Relics Management Office began to transfer rubbings, paper cultural relics and cultural relics files, arrange sandbags and other protective preparations from the afternoon of August 2, and evacuate the last batch of emergency according to the requirements of the local government notice. On August 3rd, Kaishan Temple in Gaobeidian City, Hebei Province was flooded. On August 6th, the water began to recede, and all the water in the main hall of Kaishan Temple had been drained, but the water in the courtyard was still deep. To the east of Kaishan Temple is still a vast expanse of water.
At present, the National Cutural Heritage Administration has sent personnel to the Kaishan Temple together with relevant provincial and municipal units to study and judge how to drain the accumulated water in the hospital and how to protect cultural relics.
It is understood that Kaishan Temple is located in the northeast corner of the old city site of Gaobeidian City, Baoding City, Hebei Province, covering an area of about 9500 square meters. It is a Buddhist temple that retains the architectural style of the Liao Dynasty and is listed as the fourth batch of national key cultural relics protection units by the State Council.
