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Iconic Easter Island statues damaged in wildfire

STORY: A fire on Chile's Easter Island has caused irreparable damage to its iconic statues.

The blaze swept through Rapa Nui National Park earlier this week.

It caused several of the statues' stones to crack, Mayor Pedro Edmunds told Reuters.

“The damage is unquantifiable, unmeasurable. It is also unrecoverable because the fire warms the stone, and the stone cracks. Our scientists, along with the park’s administration, will have to go to the island to make the corresponding analysis and see how big the damage is and what we’ll have do in the future. I do not know if there is a solution for this.”

A preliminary report from Chile’s heritage ministry said the wildfire started on Tuesday and swept through nearly 150 acres, damaging an unknown number of the sacred statues – known as Moai.

The report did not specify a cause of the fire.

The island had only recently reopened to tourists on August 1st, after closing its borders for more than two years due to the pandemic.

It's about 2,000 miles from the coast of Chile and has over a thousand of the statues – giant heads carved centuries ago by the island’s inhabitants.

They are considered sacred by the local indigenous people and have brought the island fame and UNESCO World Heritage Site status.