Lina in China

The earthquacke of Mai 2008 in the Sichuan province of China also partly destroyed the famous Qiqushan-Temple on the Qiqushan mountain in Zitong, Sichuan, China.

The temple of Zitong is in the official list of China’s historical monuments in Sichuan. During the earthquacke in Mai 2008 in the Mianyang are of the Sichuan province of China Zitong was badly hit by the earthquacke. Some halls of the Qiqushan-Temple got partly destroyed by the earthquacke.

In September 2008 when I visited the temple on Mt. Qiqu (Qiqushan) much repair was taking place. But in some halls rubble of ancient stones from collapsed ancient stone walls could still be seen.

Wooden hall of the Kuixing God, not destroyed

The Hall of the Kuixing God is very famous and ancient. It is three stories high and was build on 46 wooden pillars. It is 33 meters high.

The Kuixing god is the god of students and pupils in the Buddhist belief. Even today school students still go to pray in the Hall of the Kuixing God before exams. This historic room was luckily survived the earthquake almost undamaged. This is probably due to the fact that it was build in the historical way as a wooden structure. Wood proved to be more flexible when hit by an earthquake then stone.

Zitong temple earthquacke destruction

The Qiqushan-Temple lies in an ancient Cypress wood containing more then 20 000 ancient cypresses. The temple was build during the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. It contains 23 halls covering more then 13 000 square meters.

1996 the Qiqushan-Temple was asses to the list of Chinese national important historical sites.

During the earthquake several of the halls got partly destroyed. When we visited the temple repair had began but in places walls had collapsed stone railings broken and only the most ancient wooden halls had survived almost undamaged.

Tags: ancieant cypress protection area, ancient cypress wood, China, cui yun lang, earthquake, Kuixing god, Mian yang, Mianyang, mt. qiqu, Qi qu shan, qiqu, Qiqushan, Qiqushan-Tempel, Sichuan, temple, Zi Tong, Zitong

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 23:49 and is filed under Mianyang. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.