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Hong Kong Evangelists Join List Of Noah's Ark 'Discoverers'

Winnie Yeung, South China Morning Post, 23 Nov. 2004

Two Hong Kong evangelists have become the latest in a long line of explorers claiming to have discovered the remains of Noah's Ark.

Andrew Yuen Man-fai and Pastor Boaz Li Chi-kwong said they found parts of the biblical vessel embedded in ice at the top of Mount Ararat in Turkey. But they claimed a"mysterious force" made their video camera malfunction, so they were able to bring back only blurred images and no specimens.

The site is about 18km from the"official" resting place of Noah's Ark, where there is a boat-like formation said to have been mentioned by historians as long ago as 90AD. That location was declared a national park by the Turkish government about 15 years ago.

The new site is in a location where a mysterious wooden structure was said to have been spotted sticking out of the ice in the 1940s but which has yielded no positive discoveries, despite checks by orbiting satellites.

Mr Yuen, founder of Christian media production company Media Evangelism, and Pastor Li said they climbed Mount Ararat for the fourth time in October with the help of local Kurds.

They said they made their discovery about 4,200 metres above sea level.

It consisted of a flat, apparently wooden, platform coved by ice with a space below that revealed a long, black vertical wall and another layer of ice. The entire structure resembled a large wooden box, they said.

The pair want to put together an international expedition, including scientists, for another visit to the site next summer.

The story of the ark, which comes from the Old Testament and has fascinated explorers for centuries, says the vessel settled on Mount Ararat in about 4,000BC after saving Noah, his family and a pair of every animal species from a massive flood that killed everything else.