Chinese man blows £100,000 life savings on building an ark to 'escape the impending Mayan apocalypse'

Lu Zhenghai splashes out £100,000 on disaster-proof vessel

Some believe Mayans predicted end of world on Dec 21, 2012

No, God didn't reveal himself to this Chinese man in a vision.
But it seems Lu Zhenghai has been reading about the Mayan prophecy that predicts the end of the world on December 21.

He is so afraid of the rumours he has spent his whole life savings trying to build his very own apocalypse-proof 'Noah's Ark'.

Race for survival: One Chinese man is so convinced the world will end next month he is building his very own Noah's Ark (pictured)

The vessel, which has cost him ¥1million (£100,000), measures 21.2m long, 15.5m wide, 5.6m high and displaces about 140 tons of water.

Lu, from Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, admits it's not much to look at, but is confident it will serve its purpose.

Scientists and researchers are going out of their way to assure people that December 21, 2012, the so-called Mayan end-date, will not bring about the end of the world.
But that hasn't stopped some from ploughing on with their own safety measures regardless.

Faith: Lu has spent his whole life savings of £100,000 on the boat, which he believes will save him from an impending global disaster

Not quite biblical proportions: The vessel measures 21.2m long, 15.5m wide, 5.6m high and displaces about 140 tons of water

Work in progress: Lu, from Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, admits it's not much to look at, but is confident it will serve its purpose

In France, the authorities have been forced to ban access to a sacred mountain, rumoured to be a haven from the apocalypse, because hordes of believers have been flocking to the region in recent weeks.

Legend has it that the Pic de Bugarach in south-west France will burst open on that day revealing an alien spaceship which will carry nearby humans to safety. 

A hundred police and firefighters will also control approaches to the tiny village of the same name at the foot of the mountain, and if too many people turn up, they will block access there, too.

Doomsday refuge: The Pic de Bugarach, south-west France, where some believe an alien spacecraft will burst out taking humans away from an apocalypse

Expectations: With the Aztec Mayan calendar, pictured, ending on or around December 21 some fear it means the people believed it to be the end of the world

WHY DECEMBER 21, 2012?

The significance of December 21, 2012, stems from interpretations of the Maya Long Count calendar, which is made up of 394-year periods called baktuns.
Experts estimate the system starts counting at 3114 BC and will have run through 13 baktuns, or 5,125 years, around that day. 

However, experts say that while 13 was a significant number for the Maya, the end of that cycle would be a milestone — but not an end.

Geoffrey Braswell, an anthropologist at the University of California at San Diego, said: 'The Maya long count system is like a car odometer. 

'My first car (odometer) only had six wheels so it went up to 99,999.9 miles.
'That didn't mean the car would explode after reaching 100,000 miles.'

As the clock winds down to December 21, experts on the Maya calendar have been racing to convince people that the Maya didn't predict an apocalypse for the end of this year.
Some experts are now saying the Maya may indeed have made prophecies, just not about the end of the world.

Archaeologists, anthropologists and other experts met in September in the southern Mexico city of Merida to discuss the implications of the Maya Long Count calendar, which some interpret as signalling the end of the world on December 21.

Meanwhile, only a couple of references to the 2012 date equivalency have been found carved in stone at Maya sites and neither refers to an apocalypse, experts say.
Such apocalyptic visions have been common for more than 1,000 years in Western, Christian thinking, and are not native to Maya thought.

Experts stressed that the ancient Maya, whose 'classic' culture of writing, astronomy and temple complexes flourished from the year 300AD to 900AD, were extremely interested in future events, far beyond December 21.