Internationally renowned sand sculptor, winner of the 1st prize at the 3rd Berlin International Sand Sculpture Competition, 2005, Sudarshan Pattnaik has made a Christmas sculpture at Puri Beach in Orissa on Christmas Eve.

This is a 100 feet long, 30 feet wide and 15 feet high sculpture of Santa Claus on the beach.

The reason for choosing Santa as his model was simply due to the large tourist influx at the beach. And indeed it was a very pleasant surprise for the foreigners in the city.

100 labourers and 17 budding artists worked 40 non-stop hours with 1,000 tonnes of sand in order to complete this sculpture. It is one of its kind in the world and hopefully will claim a place in the Limca Book of World Records.

Sudarshan said

“I am sure that this must be the longest sand sculpture to have been made in India”

This sand Santa will be at the Puri beach for people to see until New Years.

Via: The Hindu, NDTV