Blackout at China's Terracotta Army Museum Triggers Nationwide Safety Review
Visitors at the Terracotta Warriors Museum in Xi'an were left in the dark — literally — on 4 August, when a sudden power outage knocked out lights and air conditioning across the museum's three excavation pits and main exhibition hall for several hours. Photos and videos posted on the social media platform Rednote showed visitors using phone flashlights to keep viewing the 2,000-year-old clay soldiers buried with Qin Shi Huang, China's first emperor. The museum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, drew almost 11 million visitors in 2025, making it the second-most visited museum in the country, according to an NCHA report cited by The Art Newspaper.
The Xi'an blackout was not an isolated incident. Similar outages struck the Lu Xun Museum in Beijing on 7 August and the Datong Museum in Shanxi province on 8 August. Two days earlier, on 6 August, the Zhejiang Museum issued a public apology on its official WeChat account after overcrowding and malfunctioning gates caused entry delays. According to notices from the museums involved, the failures stemmed from system overload and ageing equipment, worsened by this summer's extreme heat wave.
Six days after the Xi'an blackout, on 10 August, China's National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA) issued an emergency notice ordering public museums nationwide to strengthen summer emergency management protocols to protect both visitors and artefacts (NCHA). The South China Morning Post reported that the Xi'an blackout triggered the nationwide cultural safety review.
The directive mandates comprehensive maintenance overhauls of back-up power supply systems, central air conditioning, fire control mechanisms and collection storage spaces. Museums must deploy camera surveillance and other flow-monitoring systems to track real-time visitor numbers, refine booking systems to prevent sudden surges, and establish information-sharing mechanisms with local governments so officials are alerted the moment visitor numbers reach a threshold. The notice also requires museums to fully assess visitor flow for newly opened exhibitions in light of existing venue capacity.
For antiquities, the stakes of a blackout go beyond stranded tourists. Joey Cao, a lecturer in the Department of Conservation and Restoration at the China Academy of Art, told The Art Newspaper that sudden power outages can have a detrimental impact on antiquities requiring strict temperature and humidity controls, with the severity depending on the environmental contrast created by the outage.
This is not the first time Chinese authorities have flagged seasonal risks. The NCHA issued a notice on 20 July 2026 requiring museums to prepare for high temperatures, lightning, heavy rain and typhoons, and to conduct regular inspections of fire and security facilities, elevator and air-conditioning equipment, and electrical wiring. Earlier notices in August 2025 and October 2025 similarly called for strengthened safety management systems and emergency plans covering cultural relic and museum units.
What makes the current situation different is the visibility of the failures. The Terracotta Army is one of the most famous archaeological sites on earth, and the images of visitors peering at ancient warriors by phone-light circulated quickly. The NCHA's directive turns a summer of strained infrastructure into a formal mandate, with real-time monitoring and local-government coordination now required rather than recommended.
For the millions who pass through China's museums each year, the practical effect may be smoother entry, fewer gate malfunctions and, on the hottest days, air conditioning that holds.
