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Uttar Pradesh (pte045/23.04.2003/15:59) - The greatest monument to love could soon be history. Experts fear that the majestic Taj Mahal is buckling under the stress and strain of enormous seismic forces.
According to archaeologists a major earthquake in the vicinity could liquefy the clay soil underneath the structure and bring it crashing down like a house of cards.
By a strange oversight of the original builders, the mausoleum with a basement depth of 90 meters below ground level, is too massive to withstand tectonic movements. At its spring the dome alone tips the scales at a whopping 12,150 tonnes. The drum on which the dome rests weighs an additional 6,000 tonnes and the cenotaph has walls five metres thick.
The doomsday warnings have already sent alarm bells ringing. Quoting Chander Bhatia, Deputy Superintendent of the Archaeological Survey of India http://asi.nic.in/ who worked as conservator at the Taj for over a decade, officers of the Uttar Pradesh Tourism Directorate http://www.up-tourism.com/ have issued an alert.
Laboratory investigations are being carried out to determine the tensile strength of materials used in the construction of the seventeenth century Mughal edifice.
Measured in terms of force per unit area, tensile strength is an indicator of the stress beyond which a building could develop cracks.
Experts acknowledge that along with much of its pearl-white beauty, the Taj has also lost some of its stress bearing capacity in the last few decades. Already battered by environmental pollution, the new threat could well be the last nail in its coffin.
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