MADRID, June 26 (Xinhua) -- The World Heritage Committee has decided to remove the German city of Dresden from UNESCO's World Heritage List.

    The committee, which is meeting in Seville, Spain, until Tuesday, made the decision because of the construction of a four-lane motorway bridge in the center of the city.

    The 18th and 19th-century cultural landscape of Dresden Elbe Valley stretches for 18 kilometers along the river Elbe from the Ubigau Palace and Ostragehege fields in the northwest to the Pillnitz Palace and the Elbe River Island in the southeast.

    It features low meadows and monuments and parks from the 16th to 20th centuries, including the famous Pillnitz Palace.

    Dresden was included in the list as a "cultural landscape" in 2004. But the committee said the construction of the bridge means it has now "failed to keep its outstanding universal value."

    Dresden is only the second site to be removed from the World Heritage List, the other being the Arabian Onyx Sanctuary, which was de-listed in 2007.

    However, the action was taken only after the city failed to react to being placed on the "endangered" list when the plans for the motorway bridge were published.

    "Every time we fail to preserve a site, we share the pain," said Maria Jesus San Segundo, the Spanish ambassador to UNESCO who is also the chair of the committee's session in Seville.