Five Hundred Year old Srikalahasti Temple's 'Rajagopuram' collapsed, that was built by Raja Sri Krishna Devaraya which is about 135-feet late on Wednesday evening.
Five Hundred Year old Srikalahasti Temple's 'Rajagopuram ' collapsed, that was built by Raja Sri Krishna Devaraya which is about 135-feet, late on Wednesday evening.
Huge Cracks developed that splitted the marvelous structure of 'Rajagopuram' into two parts, As there was no causalities and the main temple at Srikalahasti was not affected by the collapse of the 135-feet Gopuram but 100's of monkeys that live on the temple's premises perished.
These huge cracks were noticed by the authorities of the temple almost a week before this incidence and they tightened this Rajagopuram by huge wire mesh to avert further cracks. But on Tuesday, inspection was done by a team of three experts from Chennai and they declared the area around the gopuram extending up to 150 meters as a “danger zone”. Around 36 families and shopkeepers living in the vicinity were evacuated on Tuesday Night.
As per the endowments minister G Venkat Reddy, "there was no negligence on the part of the government or the temple authorities in restoring the structure."
According to some eyewitnesses the gopuram fell on the ground with a huge thud around 8.05 pm. and within a minute the whole structure of gopuram collapsed and turned into a pile of rubble.
The police officers declined to comment on any casualities until the debris is removed, which is piled upto 20 feet.