Charminar, the symbol of Hyderabad, has suffered damage after a piece of lime stucco work on one of its minarets fell off, officials said on Thursday. A portion of the stucco work got detached from the granite slab on the minaret facing Mecca Masjid side, and fell off late on Wednesday reportedly after unseasonal rains in the city, sending panic among the people around the monument.
Police cordoned off the area where the debris fell. A large number of onlookers gathered near the monument.
The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) had undertaken restoration work for the monument some time back. While incidents of lime plasters peeling off are not new, the latest damage raised new concerns about the safety of the iconic structure.
The situation at Charminar after a large chunk fell off one of the minarets pic.twitter.com/dZUsorxWZy
— Nitin Bhaskaran (@NitinBGoode) May 2, 2019
Charminar was built in 1591 by Mohammed Quli Qutb Shah, the fifth king of the Qutb Shahi dynasty. The 428-year-old edifice, stands at a staggering 160 feet from ground level. It has four minarets after which it is named.
Speaking to TNM, Milan Kumar Chauley, ASI's Superintending Archaeologist in Hyderabad, said that he was in New Delhi and was rushing back to the city.
“A lime mortar chunk with the decoration has fallen down. Officials visited the spot in the morning and said that the chunk that fell also exposed a crack. The piece is around 2 metres by 88 cm. The crack is concerning and we fear that a slightly larger piece may fall, so we are putting a mesh around it,” Chauley said.
While smaller chunks have fallen in the past, Milan said that this was the first time that such a large piece had come off.
“We will take up the restoration as soon as possible. We will put up the scaffoldings and we will take it up at the earliest,” Milan added.
It was only recently that the Charminar Pedestrianisation Project (CPP) was taken up, and that pedestrianised a radius of 220 metres around Charminar by diverting vehicular traffic through the Inner Ring Road (IRR) and the Outer Ring Road (ORR).