Spanish
Authorities recently removed 51 tons of trash from inside some caves in China's Zhangjiajie National Park (central), famous for having served as visual inspiration for the movie Avatar.
Sanitation work began after the identification of waste in two karst caves in the park, located in Hunan province and which received 1.83 million visitors in 2024, according to data cited by the local press.
Inspections carried out by institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences and the Hunan Provincial Urban Geological Prospecting Institute determined that the waste was dumped between 2010 and 2016.
This is the period after the ban on burning garbage and before the implementation of a national sanitation standard, the state-run CCTV chain recently reported.
In parallel, an inspection has been deployed to locate possible illegal dumping of solid waste and other forms of contamination in underground cavities of the enclosure, which has an area of 9,534 square kilometers, an area similar to that of the Spanish province of Lugo.
Authorities have mobilized technical teams of geologists and firefighters, in addition to forming a group of volunteers in charge of supporting the tasks of surveillance and conservation of the caves, according to CCTV.
Channels have also been enabled for the presentation of complaints related to illegal dumping, including telephone lines, digital platforms and face-to-face and correspondence services, added the state media, which also reported that four officials have been removed from their posts due to the scandal.
On the social network Weibo, similar to X, blocked in China, the tag related to the case had accumulated almost 5 million views this Thursday.
Numerous internet users were outraged by the discovery: "Nobody did anything during ten years of garbage accumulation, but as soon as videos circulate on the internet, they clean it up," criticized a commentator, while others highlighted that "we all have a responsibility in caring for nature."
Zhangjiajie, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992, is famous for its lush vegetation and its spiky karst mountains, which reach 1,500 meters in height.
