Rain damages Charminar

HYDERABAD:Charminar the internationally acclaimed icon of Hyderabad has suffered damage as a piece of lime stucco work on one of its minarets fell down late last night following unseasonal rain

Updated At : 12:32 PM May 03, 2019 IST

One of the minarets from which a piece of lime stucco work fell off.

Tribune News Service
Hyderabad, May 2

Charminar, the internationally acclaimed icon of Hyderabad, has suffered damage as a piece of lime stucco work on one of its minarets fell down late last night following unseasonal rain. The 428-year-old edifice stands at a staggering 160 ft from the ground level and has been under renovation for the past few months.

A portion of the stucco work detached from the granite slab on the minaret facing Mecca Masjid side and fell off. Officials of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) that had undertaken restoration work on the monument sometime back have arrived here to make an assessment of the damage.

While the incidents of lime plasters peeling off are not new, the latest damage raised new concerns about the safety of the iconic structure, forcing the police to cordon off the area where the debris fell. The damage has happened to the south-west minaret where lime plaster comprising eight flower-petals, sized about 2.5 m/0.8 m came off the minaret.

Charminar was built in 1591 by Mohammed Quli Qutb Shah, the fifth king of the Qutb Shahi dynasty, who founded the city of Hyderabad. ASI’s superintending archaeologist, Milan Kumar Chauley, said the damage has taken place due to the monument’s erosion over a period of time and nobody in particular can be blamed for it. Chauley said, “The plastering had earlier been redone in 1924 by the seventh Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan, the Asaf Jahi monarch of the erstwhile state of Hyderabad.