41,444 kilograms of marigold flowers were shipped from Bengaluru to Dubai to create the world's largest flower carpet, an official at the Bengaluru International Airport said on Monday.
"The flowers were laid out at 'Flowers of Tolerance' at the Dubai Festival City. It has entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest natural flower carpet," read a statement by officials at the Bengaluru International Airport.
The flowers were sourced from Bengaluru and its neighbouring areas including Devanahalli and Chikkaballapura. The flower carpet in Dubai beat the existing world record set in Italy in 2016 which covered an area of 3980.84 square metres. The 'Flowers of Tolerance' flower carpet set the new record at 5,426.65 square metres.
“Our target was to make it 100,000sqft (9,290.30sqm). Unfortunately, around seven tonnes of flowers were spoilt during the transit,” said Anoop Anil Devan, general convener of the event speaking to Gulf News.
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The flowers were loaded into a chartered Boeing 777 freighter by DHL Global Forwarding on Friday in Bengaluru.
Air India SATS CoolPort, an on-airport perishable cargo handling centre, kept the flowers fresh and fragrance intact, through temperature monitoring. Over the years, Air India SATS CoolPort has facilitated flowers export from the Bengaluru airport due to its ability to keep the blossoms fresh and fragrant, according to the statement.
It also helps in the loading of flowers in the pre-loading area. It uses cool trolleys for guaranteeing the desired temperature from the CoolPort to the aircraft and vice versa, and also uses thermal blankets and dry ice, among other items.
The infrastructure ensures that the temperature is maintained not only in storage but also in the pre-loading area, right up to the time the cargo is loaded onto the aircraft.
With IANS inputs