Topic: Brazil National Museum Burned

[theplottwist]

Yesterday, the National Museum of Brazil burned to ashes in the span of an hour in a fire that lasted for a total of 6 hours.

The National Museum was the oldest and one of the most important scientific and historical institutions on the country. It was older than the actual country it was located in (200 years old, Brazil exists as an independent country since 195 years ago).

The absolute majority of two million items were lost forever. Amongst those the oldest Homo sapiens fossil on the Latin America called "Luzia", the biggest collection of Egyptian mummies of the Americas, a fresco found on the ruins of Pompeii that resisted Vesuvius, the diaries of Princess Isabel (who signed the abolition of slavery), the throne of African king Adandozan, one third of the pterosaurus fossils on the entire world, etc etc etc. Items of invaluable importance to the country's history and other countries' histories also, not mentioning actual scientific advancements. The structure itself was the old home of the imperial family containing countless documents about them, including actual receipts of Dom Pedro I's acquisition of many of these items, carefully preserved by his son later because they loved collecting and history.

Historians, biologists, archaeologists, museologists, and many other specialists are calling this the "brazilian fire of Alexandria."

I'm sharing this here because many of you (some of which history/science buffs) don't know what happened, but the word must get out. The pain at losing this museum and all the knowledge and history it had to decades of government neglect is impossible to describe. Brazil's concern with cultural preservation had been at an all time low, and this is the BIGGEST demonstration of how terrible is the situation of Brazil's education, which affects the leaders it chooses and subsequent rampant corruption that causes tragedies like this. To give you a small perspective: The State the museum was located on is in such economic shambles that the firemen didn't have enough water or working stairs to fight back the fire properly.

Here is an English article on this in more detail:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-45392668

[X]

Yeah that sound like serious bull from here. Neglect will get everything in the end, but it shouldn't be that way. Hopefully this incident will turn their heads around if not pull 'em out of their own assess about the importance of history & culture. Rather then blowing all that money on a stadium that FIFA never used (no surprise there) they could have ported it towards the now destroyed museum through upgrades and safety features.

[zangetsu468]

I smell a rat when this much information goes up in smoke like Dre did.

[Shiroi Koumori]

Those precious items!! The dino fossils!!
I'm a dino buff, and I felt so sad about this. We don't have dinosaur displays in my country, but I'd never forget the first time I saw fossils on display in Japan.

[Mooning Freddy]

This is the BIGGEST demonstration of how terrible is the situation of Brazil's education, which affects the leaders it chooses and subsequent rampant corruption that causes tragedies like this. To give you a small perspective: The State the museum was located on is in such economic shambles that the firemen didn't have enough water or working stairs to fight back the fire properly.

Ugh. The size of corruption in Brazil exposed by Dilma's investigation is immense and quite insane to be honest. It goes very very deep. Perhaps this incident wakes the people who still like Dilma / Lula and the way they ran things. They did to the international trust in Brazil's economy what the fire did to the Museum.