Two workers have been detained in northern China after local authorities said they plowed through a section of the country’s Great Wall with an excavator, leaving a gaping hole. The security bureau said it was first notified of the hole in a section of wall, near the township of Yangqianhexiang, about 215 miles east of Beijing, on the afternoon of Aug. 24. Law enforcement officers rushed to the scene to find that a piece of the wall, believed to have been constructed by the Ming dynasty between the 14th and 17th centuries, had been severely “excavated and damaged by large-scale machinery,” the bureau said. The man, named in the release as Zheng, and the woman, named as Wang, are from the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia in the country’s north and were taken in for investigation, the bureau added. They have been charged with destroying a cultural relic, The China Daily, a state-owned media outlet, reported.

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Persons: Zheng, Wang Organizations: Public Security Bureau Locations: China, Youyu, Yangqianhexiang, Beijing, Inner Mongolia