TADANO Telescopic View
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November 1988. It was on a Japanese TV program. Easter Island's former Governor Sergio Rapu commented to people in Japan; "We've been dreaming to see the Moai standing. If only we had a crane..." Governor Rapu's words struck one person who was working for TADANO. He suddenly came up with an idea renovating the statues with a TADANO crane.
We set up a working group for Moai restoration and sponsored the project in many ways starting with donating a crane. Tadano was given credit not only for crane operation but also for making special tools for holding pieces of statues during the process. Working with local people during the restoration process, we spent 4-months training them on crane operation, maintenance and slinging work.
Easter Island with the Moai statues preserved by the Chilean government is a designated World Heritage Site. Since the restoration process were supervised by related international organizations including UNESCO(*1) and ICCROM(*2), the first thing we did was to go through a thorough academic survey with archeologists.
(*1)=(UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)
(*2)=International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property