The district has one registered national relic and 15 provincial relics, according to the Quang Nam Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The 510-sq.m Hien Loc Temple, with its sophisticated sculptures, was recognised as a provincial relic in November 2005 but had been seriously damaged by a number of storms, said chairman of the Thang Binh People's Committee Nguyen Van Ngu.

The temple's pillars had been corrupted, two walls were leaning and about to collapse, and paint had peeled off some of the surfaces and it leaked whenever it rained as tiles had broken in storms, he said.

Another relic in danger is the Dong Duong Buddhist Temple, which was recognised as a national relic in September 2000.The road leading to the temple was bumpy and the Thap Sang (Bright Tower) in the temple was about to collapse, said Ngu.

"We tried to prop the tower up with some pillars eight years ago but they've since gone rotten," he said.

Nguyen Ngoc Quang, standing deputy chairman of the Quang Nam People's Committee, said the project to upgrade relics in the province during the 2011-20 period was approved at the end of last year.

"The relics have been neglected for a long time as the province is still poor and recently we have put a lot of focus on public welfare, poverty reduction and improving living standards," he said.

The project has already evaluated several of the relics so far this year.

The Quang Nam Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism was classifying the relics so that provincial authorities could set aside the necessary funds for each relic, he said. By the end of this year, the department expected to have an estimate of the funds needed for each relic.

Funding for the repairs, set at VND42 billion (US$2 million), is expected to come from the provincial budget and other sponsors.

Next year, the province plans to invite historians and architects to assist with repairs.

"The most important thing is ensuring accuracy and not changing the original beauty of the relics during the repair process," said Quang.

But Quang said he was still worried about how the relics would be maintained after the repairs were completed because the youth in the province had proven that they didn't understand the value of the relics.

"The provincial education sector should pay more attention to disseminating information about the cultural and historical value of the relics to younger generations," he said.