Chinese officials are scrambling to deal with the discovery that large chunks of the famous Great Wall are no longer standing, and more will likely be gone in the near future. “Of the portion built during the Ming Dynasty, less than 20 percent is still intact. A probe of 100 sections drew the alarming conclusion that a third of the structure has already vanished.” Survey teams were shocked to find “local farmers living along the Great Wall simply unaware of what it is. They witnessed bricks being carted away by people to build houses, sheep corrals and pigsties. One 1,000-meter section in Hebei Province, which neighbors Beijing, vanished in the space of a year after locals took stones and foundation materials for repairs.”