Tourist reprimanded for crashing drone into 1,000-year-old pagoda

The foreign tourist who scratched the Wenfeng Pagoda in Anyang, Henan province while flying a drone was reprimanded by police on Sunday.

A tourist from South Korea operated the drone at the attraction without approval, and the device collided with the top part of the pagoda before falling onto a platform, a worker from the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology told Beijing News. Staff at the scenic spot inspected the situation and found that the cultural relic was undamaged. They then called the police, who conducted document verification and provided both reprimand and education to the tourist.

"The outer layer has white ash, which is relatively hard, so no traces were left after the collision," said the worker.

Wenfeng Pagoda has a history of over a thousand years. In 2001, the pagoda was announced as a key cultural relic protection unit in China.