Local Chinese officials in Henan province cited the failure to obtain proper government approval as the reason for demolishing a monument to Mao Zedong just days after its completion. The 37- meter-high plaster statue was painted gold and cost $440,000 to build over a 10-month period. The decision to demolish the monument came so quickly, the cranes used to erect it were still on site to take it down. The demise of the monument was hastened by growing outrage on Chinese social media, with critics calling the statue a waste of resources and saying it was inappropriate to build a monument to Mao in Henan province, where more than 20 million people died as a result of Mao’s faulty policies on industrialization and collective farming.