Photo Essay: The Battle to Save the World’s Biggest Stone Buddha

Leshan Giant Buddha is the largest and tallest stone Buddha statue in the world, with a history of more than 1,300 years. Photo: Ding Gang/Caixin

About two decades since he last checked on the Leshan Giant Buddha, 83-year-old Huang Kezhong clambered up scaffolding again in 2019 to investigate the condition of the UNESCO World Heritage site in Southwest China’s Sichuan province.

Huang, an expert on the protection of grotto temples at the China Academy of Cultural Heritage, was first involved in protecting the world’s tallest Buddha statue way back in 1989, and returned to the site in 2001 to again inspect it.

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