Built in AD 601-604 to hold sarira Buddhist relics, the pagoda had been located inside the Xianyou Temple in the valley of the Heihe River. The site used to have a summer palace belonging to Emperor Wendi of the Sui Dynasty (AD 581-618).

As the only Sui Dynasty brick pagoda remaining in the country, the Fawang Pagoda has attracted thousands of tourists every year.

In 1998, the local government decided to launch a hydropower project on the Heihe River.

The State Council approved a plan to move the Xianyou Temple, together with the Fawang Pagoda, to the village of Jinpen, about 2 kilometers north of the original site.

With investment of over 5 million yuan (US$600,000), the relocation project began in August 2001 and is expected to be completed this October.

The relocation of the pagoda has already entered the final stage, according to Peng Zhituan, a local official in charge of relics protection. "It might be the country's first attempt to relocate an ancient pagoda," Peng added.

Zheng Wei, one of the engineers in charge of the project, said: "It's not at all easy to remove a 30-metre pagoda that was built with 500,000 bricks."

Technicians made detailed records of each ancient brick when dismantling the pagoda.

Since the pagoda foundations had been badly damaged before, the relocation project also included a lot of renovation work, Zheng added.

(China Daily June 26, 2003)