A forest fire that devastated part of Easter Island has charred some of its fabled monumental carved stone figures known as moai, authorities said on Thursday.

“Nearly 60 hectares (148 acres) were affected, including some moai,” Carolina Perez, Secretary of State for Cultural Heritage, said in a Twitter post.

On Easter Island, which is around 3,500 kilometers off the west coast of Chile, 100 hectares have gone up in flames since Monday, Perez said. The area around the Rano Raraku volcano, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was hardest hit.

It is estimated that there are several hundred moai in this area as well as in the quarry where the stone from which the sculptures were carved is quarried.

“The damage caused by the fire cannot be reversed,” Easter Island Mayor Pedro Edmunds told local media.

Information on the total damage is not yet available.

But the fire comes just three months after the island reopened to tourism on August 5 after two years of closure due to Covid-19.

Before the pandemic, Easter Island – whose main source of income is tourism – received about 160,000 visitors a year on two daily flights.

But with the arrival of Covid-19 in Chile, tourist activities have been completely suspended.

The island was long inhabited by Polynesians before being annexed by Chile in 1888.