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Unforeseen events but organisers say world’s tallest Christmas tree up
Last minute touches being made to the controversial Christmas tree yesterday. Pic by Indika Handuwala
Workers who braved the chilly weather at night and the mid-day heat achieved the target yesterday to erect the world’s tallest artificial Christmas tree, organisers claimed.
They claimed their tree had broken the record set up by a company in Guangdong, China last year for the tallest artificial Christmas tree.
The lighting ceremony was due to take place last night.
Workers braved the cold weather overnight trying to raise the height of the tree to at least 230 feet.
Mangala P. Gunasekara, Chairman of the Committee to Construct the World’s tallest Christmas Tree said the original target was to construct a 320 foot tree, but were forced to stop as they needed to light up the tree by Christmas eve.
He said the initial target was to construct the tree in two sections but eventually decided to have the top section as a second tree placed beside the main tree.
Some 1,000 workers worked in shifts with 150 to 200 men rotating shifts. The 320 ft. tree was estimated to cost Rs 12 million.
The workers used more than 600,000 bulbs and pinus cones.
The project was halted for 12 days after Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith raised concerns over public funds being used for the project. However the Cardinal later gave gave the go-ahead to the project when it was pointed out that the funding came from the private sector.
Mr Gunasekara said the delay cost them six days of construction work, two days to recall workers on the project and four more days to get the cranes back to the Galle Face.
“When we re-started work we were short of time and decided to work continuously around the clock, in an effort to complete the work.
“The strong sun and the cold breeze at night were an additional burden workers faced” he said.
H.D.M Nanayakara, the man behind concept and designing the Christmas tree said he had mixed feelings about the progress of work on the construction of the tree.
He emphasised that every worker put in 100% effort to raise the tree to its targeted height of 320 feet. Unfortunately we ran short of time he said adding they hoped to raise the height of the tree to a height of the tree to 250 feet by last evening.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Expression group, a movement working to restore traditional and Catholic identity said yesterday, the tallest Christmas tree had been constructed in Brazil in 2009 with a height of 419.9 ft and even if the Christmas tree at Galle Face had reached the 320 ft target, it would still not have broken the record for the tallest Christmas tree in the world.
However the record says it was the ‘largest Christmas tree strucutre’ while the local organisers said Sri Lanka has constructed the “tallest artificial Christmas tree”.