China’s elaborate winter festival is now a graveyard of melting ice castles. Take a look.

Wang Zhaobo/VCG/Getty Images

• The city of Harbin in northeastern China hosts an elaborate winter festival with giant ice sculptures in the shape of castles, churches, and famous landmarks. 
• Millions of people travel each year to view the intricate designs, which often stay open past the official end date as long as weather permits. 
• This year’s festival was forced to close in February due to warm weather, which caused the structures to thaw, and transformed the site into a melted graveyard.

It takes about 110,000 cubic meters of ice to build the elaborate sculptures at the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in northeastern China. 

At the end of each winter, the festival transforms from a fairy-tale landscape of glistening churches, castles, and famous buildings into a graveyard of sunken-in sculptures. 

Read more: A city in China hosts an elaborate winter festival with giant ice castles, mass weddings, and a frigid swimming contest — take a look

This year’s festival ended earlier than expected due to a bout of warm weather, which posed a safety hazard as the structures began to thaw. 

The work of tens of thousands of artists is now melting on a plot of land larger than California’s Disneyland. Here’s how the festival looked in January, compared to how it looks now. 

The Harbin Ice and Snow Festival opened on January 5 in northeastern China.

Tyrone Siu/Reuters

Not only is it the world’s biggest ice and snow festival, but it also features the largest ice sculptures seen anywhere.

Tyrone Siu/Reuters

Artists use about 110,000 cubic meters of ice to execute their intricate designs.

aphotostory/Shutterstock

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Source: Business Insider – feedback@businessinsider.com (Aria Bendix)