Part of a 500-year old rampart in Quang Ngai Province was unintentionally pulled down by a local resident who found the structure “trespassing” on his land. A 37-meter long section of the historical rampart was leveled off by the farmer to plant acacia trees who didn’t recognize the structure as a national archaelogical site having no boundaries to identify its significance.
 
The People’s Committee of the central province in Ba To District has ordered concerned agencies to investigate and recover the destroyed section of the rampart. The Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism is one such agency given the task of determining the extent of the damage. A demarcation work is scheduled to be conducted on the area on April 15.
 
The rampart is 130 kilometers long, considered the longest rampart in Southeast Asia. It runs from Quang Ngai Province to Binh Dinh Province in the central region of Vietnam. It has a 22-kilometer long section passing through the Ba To District, the one that was destroyed.
 
A five-year study made on the structure revealed that the ramparts were built through the joint efforts of the Viet or Kinh people, the native H’re people of the province, and even the soldiers. 100 guard posts all made of stone composes the rampart, making it a strong and historically significant structure. Moreover, foreign experts who visited and saw the rampart realized this historical importance that they suggested it be applied for and recognized as an UNESCO World Heritage.
 
It is this historical value that damage on the rampart was a critical matter and had to be restored the soonest.