Indiscriminate soil digging threatens Hampi’s monuments, a UNESCO world heritage site in Karnataka, the New Indian Express reported on March 27.

Residents of the town reported finding road contractors lifting the soil near a hillock recently, and alerted authorities and halted the work.

The newspaper reported the locals saying the soil was mixed with thin sand for use in several civic works, including road construction.1

A part of the fort around Kamala Mahal at Hampi, built with heavy stone blocks, had collapsed on March 12, according to The Hindu.2

....

Adding to ongoing development work, the Hampi World Heritage Area Management Authority is also constructing a 40-feet-wide and a kilometre long road amid the ruins, Deccan Herald had reported in September 2020.3

In February 2020, the Supreme Court had noted a persistent threat to historical monuments in the region arising from illegal constructions. It directed authorities in the district to demolish illegal restaurants, hotels and guest houses at Virupapur Gaddi, an oval islet formed by the Tungabhadra river near Hampi.

• 1. “The soil holds the boulders and any kind of disturbance is not good for monuments. There have also been attempts at stone quarrying around Hampi, which must be stopped,” one resident told The New Indian Express.
• 2. “The fort wall has collapsed on its own. There is no damage to other monuments at the World Heritage Site,” P. Kalimuttu, deputy superintendent of the Archaeological Survey of India, told the publication. “Measures will be taken to rebuild the structure.”
• 3. The proposed road will cut through Hampi’s ruins, and had drawn fierce opposition from local heritage activists. “Already concrete structures in the name of ticket counters and canteens have come up behind Krishna Temple and near Gejjala Mantapa,” two of them, Y. Shashidhar and J. Shivakumar, are quoted as saying. “Now the proposed road will only spoil the heritage value of Hampi.”