Easter Island residents are grappling with the headache and heartbreak of a disastrous collision over the weekend, when a man destroyed one of the island’s famous statues by hitting it with his truck.
A Chilean resident of the island struck one of the towering stone statues with his pickup on Sunday, according to local authorities. The truck toppled the statue, causing it to smash into several pieces along the rocky shoreline of the Chile-governed island.
The incident has caused “incalculable” damage to the statue and the island’s indigenous Rapa Nui people, Mayor Pedro Edmunds Paoa told the El Mercurio paper.
The famous statues are known as moai and are said to embody the ancestral spirits of the Rapa Nui people.
“The moai are sacred structures that possess a religious value for the people of Rapa Nui,” Camilo Rapu, president of the island’s Ma’u Henua community, told The Guardian.
The island is home to nearly 1,000 of the giant stone statues, which were carved 400-600 years ago. The largest ones are full-bodied humanoids that stand up to 10 metres tall. Others are half-buried so that only their heads are visible.
“Something like this isn’t just dreadful,” Rapu said. “It’s an offence against a living culture that has spent the last few years fighting to regain its historic and archeological heritage.”
The driver has been arrested and charged with damaging a national monument, according to Paoa. It’s believed the man’s brakes failed and he rolled down a hill toward the water before striking the statue.
Paoa says the incident has re-ignited debate about traffic laws on the island, which is home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
“Everyone decided against establishing traffic rules when it came to vehicles on sacred sites,” Paoa told El Mercurio. “But we, as a council, were talking about the dangers and knew very well what the rise in tourist and resident numbers could mean.”
He says this incident highlights the need for more stringent measures to protect the statues from cars in the future.
“They didn’t listen to us,” Paoa said. “And this is the result.”
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