Fire Devastates Brazil's Oldest Science Museum, Museu Nacional, in Rio de Janeiro

[Sylvia]

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...nacional-fire-rio-de-janeiro-natural-history/

Major pieces of Brazil's scientific and cultural heritage went up in smoke on Sunday night, as a devastating fire ripped through much of Rio de Janeiro's Museu Nacional, or National Museum. Founded in 1818, the museum is Brazil's oldest scientific institution and one of the largest and most renowned museums in Latin America, amassing a collection of some 20 million scientifically and culturally invaluable artifacts.

 

[TOADS]

Just saw this on the noon news. What is worrisome is that the whole building was burning from end to end and side to side. I hope arson was not involved....

 

[Buzz]

Absolutely devastating!

 

[aliceanne]

I read that the fire hydrants nearby weren’t working, and fire fighters had to go to a lake to get water, which wasted a lot of time.

 

[Vash01]

So sad!

 

[Japanfan]

This is tragic, but at least the museum was closed, and no people were harmed or killed.

 

[skatesindreams]

This is a tragedy for the world, even without loss of life.

 

[Sylvia]

11,800-pound meteorite withstands a devastating fire at Brazil's National Museum
Original source link: https://g1.globo.com/rj/rio-de-jane...rvo-diz-vice-diretora-do-museu-nacional.ghtml

Editorial piece written by Mércio Gomes, a Brazilian anthropologist living in Rio de Janeiro: https://www.cnn.com/style/article/national-museum-brazil-fire-mercio-gomes-opinion/index.html
Excerpt:

It's not only politicians, the federal government, the Ministry of Culture or administrators at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (which the museum is tied to) -- virtually everyone is to blame. And everyone feels part of the larger cultural mechanism that has produced an attitude of carelessness and a basic incapability to keep an institution like the National Museum in a state of good repair.
We Brazilians have lost much of the material memory of our short past. A good part of our 518 years of history -- or that which had been transformed into storable objects and could be seen by all -- disappeared in just a few hours.
Perhaps we can, in a decade or so, reconstruct the museum and reconstitute part of its collections of scientific objects, memorabilia and curios to once again entertain the children who flocked to see them. It is, after all, the children of Rio de Janeiro and other cities around it who are the ones to suffer the most for this loss.