Associated Press

New Delhi, July 15:

The roof of the Taj Mahal, India’s world famous monument to love, has sprung a leak after heavy monsoon rains lashed northern India earlier this week, a newspaper said today. Water seeped in through the white marble roof of the 350-year old Taj Mahal yesterday, the Hindustan Times said, quoting officials from the Archaeological Survey of India, the state organisation that maintains the mausoleum built for an emperor’s wife. Masons have begun sealing the leak in the domed structure with lime and mortar, said RS Srivastava, an Archaeological Survey of India official. The leak probably occurred because the marble blocks expanded in the intense heat preceding the monsoons but contracted when the rain cooled them, causing hairline shifts in the alignments of the blocks, he said. The 17th century tomb was built by the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan between 1632 and 1654 in the memory of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal.