The local government of Suizhong County in southwestern Liaoning Province cemented a 700 year-old stretch of the iconic Great Wall of China in a botched restoration effort that's so ugly it's flooding Chinese social media with messages of anger, condemnation and ridicule.

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Photos show the brick walkway along a "wild" or disused portion of the Great Wall completely encased in a river of gray cement. Media reports said Suizhong should have used mortar and not cement to repair the Wall.

Images of the repair job gone awry are trending on Chinese microblogging site Sina Weibo. Angry posts keep turning up on the trending Weibo hashtag "The most beautiful, wild Great Wall flattened."

One post said, "The repairs might as well not have been done. It just did more damage. Terrible."

Another post commented: "Glad Venus de Milo is not in China, or someone would get her a new arm."

Sina.com reported the restoration work was approved by Suizhong's Cultural Relics Bureau which, in turn, said its plans were given the green light by Liaoning's Heritage Conservation Bureau.

The Cultural Relics Bureau explained the restoration was an effort to repair parts of the Wall that have fallen into disrepair and aren't open to the public. The contractor that undertook the actual "restoration" was not named.

The repairs were completed in 2014 but have only now come to the Chinese public's attention thanks to social media posts.

Great Wall of China Society deputy director Dong Yaohui said the restoration work had been done "very badly."

"It damaged the original look of the Great Wall and took away the history from the people," he said.

Dong argued it was important for the Chinese government to regulate and streamline Great Wall restoration efforts.

"Although the local government was well intentioned and wanted to restore the bricks of the Wall, the result turned out to be the opposite."

Since 2006, the Great Wall Protection Ordinance in China introduced strict rules for the development of tourist destinations.

TagsSuizhong County, Liaoning Province, Great Wall of China, restoration, Cultural Relics Bureau