For nearly 100 years the Buddhist temple bell at Papaaloa Hongwanji Mission has sounded before morning services. But on Wednesday there was silence. Thieves had stolen the relic.

Members are hoping that the bell, believed to be bronze, and which has been a part of the Wednesday routine at the Big Island temple since 1919, will be returned.

Measuring 24 inches wide by 30 inches tall and weighing 150 to 200 pounds, the bell was reported stolen to Hawaii County police Wednesday morning.

“We’re hopeful to get it back,” Hongwanji Secretary Rose Broughton said Thursday.

Broughton said news about its theft has gone viral on the Internet and that she’s met people who became aware of the theft from Facebook. “There’s been a huge outcry,” she said.

Broughton said considerable effort was needed to take the bell. “It was hanging pretty high up outside,” she said.

Tracks on the ground indicate it was taken away by a truck, Broughton said, adding that she and some others estimate it probably took three people to carry it.

The Papaaloa Hongwanji Mission was established about 112 years ago, and the bell was donated by a family, she said.

The temple is near the former Laupahoehoe Sugar Co. on the Hamakua Coast, a business established in the 1880s that employed successive waves of immigrant workers.

Broughton said an artist who does metal sculptures estimated the bell’s value at $1,000 to $5,000. “To us it’s irreplaceable,” she said.

Police ask anyone with information about the theft or the location of the bell to call the police nonemergency line at 935-3311 or officer Robert Panem at 962-2120, or email Sgt. Jefferson Grantz at jefferson.grantz@hawaiicounty.gov.