The 1,500-year-old grottoes, which are bidding to be listed as World Cultural Heritage site, had been polluted by dust emitted from trucks carrying coal passing hundreds of meters along the treasure house.

Many of the 51,000 Buddhist statues have been blurred, according to Jin Shanzhong, secretary of Datong City Committee of Communist Party of China.

He told a press conference held in Beijing Friday that the city, where the grottoes are located, has spent 200 million yuan (US$25 million) to reconstruct a road 24 kilometers away from the Buddhist statues to divert the trucks.

Datong, some 300 kilometers away from Beijing, is one of China' s biggest coal production bases. The city is also famous for historical sites, including grottoes, temples, tombs and sections of the ruined Great Wall.

Jin said the government is using 300 million yuan (US$36 million) from an Asian Development Bank loan to eliminate pollution caused by coal production.

In addition, the central government will spend 1.7 billion yuan (US$200 million) to clean up the water in the city.

Jin said Datong will be turned into a tourism-oriented city, and it will reclaim the title of "a city of grandeur and beauty," which was eulogized by Marco Polo, an Italian had traveled there in ancient time.

The city will host a tourism festival next month to show its facelift achievements, according to Jin.

(Xinhua News Agency 06/22/2001)