A popular short-video platform in China on Wednesday permanently banned a user who damaged nationally-protected natural landform and uploaded video of it.
Four people recently sneaked into a special protected area not open to the public in the Zhangye Danxia National Geopark, Northwest China's Gansu Province and damaged colored hills in the park, Lanzhou Morning News reported on Wednesday.
Two of them have surrendered. Local police are trying to identify the other two in an ongoing investigation, the report said.
They uploaded a video on short-video platform Douyin, saying, "It feels so good to damage the 6,000-year-old Danxia landform." They also urged others to enter the area as "it is free of charge and much more beautiful than the open area," the newspaper reported.
In a Wednesday statement, Douyin said it had removed the videos and permanently banned the user account.
The geopark repaired and strengthened the guard railings on Wednesday and a special security team was assigned to the area to prevent similar cases, the report added.
The Zhangye Danxia landform developed in the pre-Jurassic to Tertiary ages about 200 million years ago. It takes at least 60 years to recover from a footprint, the Lanzhou newspaper reported.
