Kalinga Times Correspondent
Puri, Dec 24: As people all over the world were busy celebrating Christmas, sand artist Sudarsan Pattnaik carved a moving image of Santa Claus on the golden beach of Puri on the Odisha coast on Wednesday.

Pattnaik said he carved the tallest sand sculpture of Santa Claus for the cause of world peace. “Peace is the only battle worth waging,” he observed.

Starting a nine-day-long sand art festival on Christmas Eve, the artist also carved a sand sculpture of Jesus Christ.

The artist took 30 hours to complete the 25 ft high sculpture of Santa Claus by using 600 tonnes of sand.

In his sculpture, Pattnaik showed Santa Claus distributing peace in form of gifts.

About 15 students of Golden Sand Art Institute that Pattnaik runs on the Puri beach assisted him in completing the sculpture.

Last year, Pattnaik had created world's biggest sand sculpture of Jesus Christ along with an image of Santa Claus on Puri beach which was placed in `Limca Book of World Record'.