Chinese Museums Ordered to Strengthen Emergency Protocols After Blackouts and Overcrowding
Following incidents of power failures and excessive crowds during the summer holiday, China's National Cultural Heritage Administration has mandated that public museums enhance their emergency protocols. On August 4, the Terracotta Warriors Museum in Xi'an faced a blackout that impacted both its exhibition hall and excavation pits. Similar issues were reported at the Lu Xun Museum in Beijing on August 7 and the Datong Museum in Shanxi on August 8. On August 6, the Zhejiang Museum issued an apology for delays in entry due to high visitor numbers. Experts like Joey Cao have raised concerns about potential damage to fragile artifacts. The administration's guidelines call for improved surveillance, better booking systems, and infrastructure maintenance. The Terracotta Warriors Museum drew nearly 11 million visitors in 2025.
Key facts
- National Cultural Heritage Administration ordered museums to strengthen emergency protocols
- Terracotta Warriors Museum blackout on 4 August at around 1pm local time
- Outage lasted several hours across three excavation pits and main exhibition hall
- Lu Xun Museum in Beijing and Datong Museum in Shanxi had outages on 7 and 8 August
- Zhejiang Museum apologized for overcrowding and gate malfunction on 6 August
- Outages attributed to system overload and ageing equipment worsened by heatwave
- Joey Cao from China Academy of Art commented on risks to antiquities
- Terracotta Warriors Museum had nearly 11 million visitors in 2025
Entities
Artists
- Joey Cao
Institutions
- National Cultural Heritage Administration
- Terracotta Warriors Museum
- Lu Xun Museum
- Datong Museum
- Zhejiang Museum
- China Academy of Art
- The Art Newspaper
Locations
- China
- Xi'an
- Shaanxi province
- Beijing
- Shanxi province