World’s tallest Christmas tree erected in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Saturday claimed the title for the construction of world’s tallest artificial Christmas tree, surpassing a record set by China last year, officials said. The tree was put up in the Galle Face green, a sea front grounds in the capital city which was also the main venue where Pope Francis held the main mass during his visit to Sri Lanka last year. A spokesman for the organizing committee, Mangala Gunasekara said that the structure stood at 235 ft (71 meters) surpassing the previous record of 180.4 ft (54.9 meters). He said they would seek to claim the Guinness World Record for the tallest artificial Christmas tree. More than 1,000 workers were deployed for the project, with construction taking more than three months. Sri Lanka’s catholic population is around 1.2 million people of a total of 21 million people in the country. Nearly 70 per cent of the nation’s population is Buddhist. — dpa