Shamed Chinese tourists apologise after smashing up ancient stalactite
- Weibo footage from cameras at Tai Qing in Hubei province, China’s biggest karst cave, pulls 150 million hits as visitors are caught vandalising rock formation
Four tourists who broke a stalactite into pieces for souvenirs at a visitor attraction in central China on the weekend apologised and offered to make reparations after a warning from police.
The incident occurred in a cave at the Tai Qing Dong Ecological Leisure Holiday Park in Yuanan county, Hubei province, on Saturday, and was captured on security cameras.
In footage posted on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like service, two men and two women stand on stairs next to a giant rock formation, said to be “billions of years old”, trying to break pieces off.
After several failed attempts, one man climbs onto the handrail, snaps off a stalactite and passes pieces to his friends.
The tourists were stopped on their way out with two bags of rocks by park staff, who called the police.
On Sunday, the four – who were not named by park authorities – issued an apology, which appeared on the park’s WeChat account.
