By Our Special Correspondent
A century after the British filled the Jagamohan (Assembly Hall) of World Heritage Site Konark Sun Temple with sand to prevent it from collapsing; the Archeology Department of India has begun the process of emptying the sand for construction. Thursday is the harmful part of the structure.
A special pooja was performed before embarking on the most challenging task ever undertaken by ASI. After years of consultations, scientific research and scanning of the structure with modern techniques, the sand evacuation begins.
We have started the process of moving sand from Jagamohan from Thursday. ASI Superintending Archaeologist (Bhubaneswar Circle) Arun Malik said it will take three years to completely remove the sand from the structure.
ASI is setting up a working platform for work and inspection of structural stability of the 13th century temple. A tunnel will be created from the western side at a height of 14 meters to reach the sand. According to the plan, sand and garbage are loaded into a motorized trolley, a gantry crane lowers the extracted sand to ground level and the trolley containing the sand and garbage moves out of the premises.
According to engineers, the structure will be temporarily supported while the sand is gradually removed. Finally, a fabricated stainless steel beam is installed inside the Jagamohan as the final support.
Noticing that the Konark temple structure was falling into disrepair, the British created a wall inside the Jagamohan and filled it with river sand in 1903, anticipating that the sand load would begin to take over. It was the best preventive measure available at the time.
But the sand settled as the objective of supporting the structure was not fulfilled. Instead, the sand load puts a lot of pressure on the side wall. So it is necessary to take out the sand to preserve the structure. It should be noted that the main Konark Sun Temple has already collapsed.
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