Cambodia restoring three more Buddha statues at Bakan tower

Global News 2022-02-20 21:43:405847Cambodia News OnlineNews Center

Photo taken on Aug. 24, 2021 shows Bakan tower at the Angkor Wat temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia

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.

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 2021, the experts also completed the restoration of a ruined Buddha statue in the south of the Bakan tower, Soy Sophearin explained.

The 401-square-kilometer Angkor Archeological Park, inscribed on the World Heritage List of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 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 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.

It added that it earned $528,121 in ticket sales in 2021, down 97 percent.