It’s the largest stone Buddha in the world: 71 metres tall when sitting down. Almost double the size of the enormous Buddhas in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, which were destroyed by the Taliban. We’re talking about the magnificent Giant Buddha in Leshan, China. Registered as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, it’s a feat of mankind that has resisted both nature and man’s ferocity for 1300 years – all this is now coming undone due to pollution.

Act of faith or hydraulic engineering? In was in the Christian times of 713 AD when, in the central province of Sichuan, Monk Haitong decided to build a giant Buddha statue at the confluence of three rivers – Minjiang, Dadu and Qingyi. His aim was to protect the boats which often drowned because of the turbulent currents. Ninety-five years later, the peaceful gaze of the huge Buddha sat carved out in the rock, supervising the boats that ploughed through the waters in the basin under his feet, which miraculously had become calm. The huge amount of debris from the construction had altered the currents making navigation secure. Was Haitong a hydraulic engineer disguised as a monk?

Acid rain is eating it away. From then on, the Buddha of Leshan (the name of the nearby city) has survived through wars of the Chinese kingdoms and the worst natural catastrophes unharmed. Nothing has ever disturbed his serene expression. Today, that expression is fading.
In 1996 this archaeological site, that has only recently become a pilgrim and tourist destination again, was included on the list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Yet it’s exactly in these years that the mining industry boom began in the province of Sichuan. The atmospheric pollution from the powerful emissions of the region’s development has caused the acid rain phenomenon, which is slowly but inexorably eating away at the surface of the Giant Buddha.

The black cloud from the Dragon. Calculations show that around one third of Chinese land is affected by acid rain: only one of the many dramatic environmental effects from the unstoppable Chinese economic development. Respiratory and cardiac illnesses caused from air pollution are the primary cause of death in China. The black smog that overpowers the country, clearly visible in space, is caused by polluting emissions from heating and traffic in the new gigantic metropolis, but above all from fumes from heavy industries and carbon central electricity. Just in the course of a few years, China has taken America’s place as the country most responsible for global warming. Within several decades China will be feared for its invasion of smog clouds rather than for its low cost merchandise, unless Peking is convinced to make its development ‘sustainable’ to safeguard the lives of its people and of the entire planet.