Siem Reap: The restoration team of APSARA National Authority has built scaffolding to remove large stones and restore them to their original condition; they will also be cleaning small stones and dust at the southeastern platform of Angkor Wat's Bakan Tower, which has been damaged for centuries.

Kham Mony, technical officer of the Department of Conservation of Monuments and Preventive Archaeology of the APSARA National Authority, said that every day, the restoration team uses pure manpower to pull or lift large stones from the original site along with the use of five chain blocks to pull the stones up and down, taking hours to remove a single stone. The large stones, which have gaps of one to 27 cm are to be kept in a safe place, while new stones are being lifted to rebuild the corners of the platform. Stones are transferred via a cart that takes about 15 people to pull; the crew can only move six to eight stones per day.

Kham Mony added that hauling large stones up to the southeastern platform of Angkor Wat's Bakan Tower is not an easy task, as the team had to use a dragging force of about 30 to 40 meters and each stone weighs about 1,500 kg.

The difficulty of hauling large stones by human hands requires experts use high-quality techniques that do not affect the old, dilapidated structures, in addition to maintaining a safe working environment.