Brazil's 200-Year-Old National Museum’s knowledge Lost by Massive Fire

A massive fire engulfed Brazil’s oldest and most important historical and scientific museum and much of its archive of 20m items believed to have been destroyed.
The fire at Rio de Janeiro’s 200-year-old National Museum began after it closed to the public on Sunday and was still raging during the night. There have been no reports of injuries. Firefighters from seven different stations are trying to battle the blaze, but Brazilian President Michel Temer has already said the losses are too great to be calculated.
It was immediately unclear how the fire began.
“It was the biggest natural history museum in Latin America. We have invaluable collections. Collections that are over 100 years old,” Cristiana Serejo, one of the museum’s vice directors, told the G1 news site.
According to the museum’s website, it has many items related to the history of Brazil and other countries, and that many of its collections came from members of Brazil’s royal family.
Among the South American artefacts in the collection are anthropology, archaeology, paleontology, fossils and meteorites.
Some Brazilians saw the fire as a metaphor for their country’s traumas as it battles terrifying levels of violent crime and the effects of a recession that has left more than 12 million people unemployed.
The fire is seen as a metaphor for the country’s traumas as it battles terrifying levels of violent crime and the effects of a recession that has left more than 12 million people unemployed.
“The tragedy this Sunday is a sort of national suicide. A crime against our past and future generations,” Bernard Mello Franco, one of Brazil’s best-known columnists, wrote on the O Globo newspaper site.
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