Brazil museum fire: ‘incalculable’ loss as 200-year-old Rio
institution gutted
The Museu Nacional houses artefacts from Egypt, Greco-Roman
art and some of the first fossils found in Brazil
Dom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
@domphillips
Mon 3 Sep 2018 04.27 BST First published on Mon 3 Sep 2018
03.07 BST
Brazil’s oldest and most important historical and scientific
museum has been consumed by fire, and much of its archive of 20m items is
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 raged into the night. There
were no reports of injuries, but the loss to Brazilian science, history and culture
was incalculable, two of its vice-directors said.
“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.
Marina Silva, a former environment minister and candidate in
October’s presidential elections said the fire was like “a lobotomy of the
Brazilian memory”.
Luiz Duarte, another vice-director, told TV Globo: “It is an
unbearable catastrophe. It is 200 years of this country’s heritage. It is 200
years of memory. It is 200 years of science. It is 200 years of culture, of
education.” TV Globo also reported that some firefighters did not have enough
water to battle the blaze.
The fire began after
the museum closed
It wasn’t immediately clear how the fire began. The museum
was part of Rio’s Federal University but had fallen into disrepair in recent
years. Its impressive collections included items brought to Brazil by Dom Pedro
I – the Portuguese prince regent who declared the then-colony’s independence
from Portugal – Egyptian and Greco-Roman artefacts, “Luzia”, a 12,000 year-old
skeleton and the oldest in the Americas, fossils, dinosaurs, and a meteorite
found in 1784. Some of the archive was stored in another building but much of
the collection is believed to have been destroyed.
Brazil’s president, Michel Temer, who has presided over cuts
to science and education as part of a wider austerity drive, called the losses
“incalculable”. “Today is a tragic day for the museology of our country,” he
tweeted. “Two hundred years of work research and knowledge were lost.”
Michel Temer
✔
@MichelTemer
Incalculável para o
Brasil a perda do acervo do Museu Nacional. Foram perdidos 200 anos de
trabalho, pesquisa e conhecimento. O valor p/ nossa história não se pode
mensurar, pelos danos ao prédio que abrigou a família real durante o Império. É
um dia triste para todos brasileiros
2:59 AM - Sep 3, 2018
Mércio Gomes, an anthropologist and former president of
Brazil’s indigenous agency, Fundação Nacional do Índio (FUNAI), compared the
loss to the burning of the library of Alexandria in 48BC. “We Brazilians only
have 500 years of history. Our National Museum was 200 years old, but that’s
what we had, and what is lost forever,” he wrote on Facebook. “We have to
reconstruct our National Museum.”
Duarte said that governments were to blame for failing to
support the museum and letting it fall into disrepair. At its 200th birthday in
June, not one state minister appeared. “For many years we fought with different
governments to get adequate resources to preserve what is now completely
destroyed,” he said. “My feeling is of total dismay and immense anger.”
Duart also said that the museum had just closed a deal with
the Brazilian government’s development bank, BNDES, for funds that included a
fire prevention project. “This is the most terrible irony,” he said.
At the scene, several indigenous people gathered and
criticised the fact that the museum containing their most precious artefacts
has burned down seemingly because there was no money for maintenance of
hydrants, yet the city had recently managed to find a huge budget to build a
brand new museum of tomorrow. A crowd of several dozen people outside the
gates, several of whom were clearly distraught. Others blamed the government’s
austerity policies and corruption.
Rio’s fire chief Colonel Roberto Robaday said the
firefighters did not have enough water at first because two hydrants were dry.
“The two nearest hydrants had no supplies,” he said. Water trucks were brought
in and water used from a nearby lake. “This is an old building,” he said, “with
a lot of flammable material, lots of wood and the documents and the archive
itself.”
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 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.
Additional reporting by Jonathan Watts Ardeu o palácio de D.
João VI no Rio de Janeiro, Museu Nacional do Brasil
Museu Nacional, o antigo Palácio de São Cristóvão foi casa
dos Bragança no Brasil. Destruição do acervo foi devastadora, segundo primeiras
estimativas.
Leonídio Paulo Ferreira
03 Setembro 2018 — 01:52
Diário de Notícias https://www.dn.pt/mundo/interior/arde-palacio-de-d-joao-vi-no-rio-de-janeiro-9793821.html
Um incêndio de grandes proporções destruiu o Museu Nacional
no Rio de Janeiro. Situado na Quinta da Boa Vista, o edifício alberga uma vasta
coleção museológica, desde arte indígena a meteoritos e a um importante espólio
de egiptologia, mas destaca-se também por ter sido residência dos Bragança no
Brasil, tanto no período colonial até 1822, como depois já da independência até
à proclamação da república em 1889. Na Sala do Trono havia mobiliário e objetos
vários que pertenceram à família real, depois imperial.
O ministro da Cultura brasileiro, Sérgio Sá Leitão, já
considerou que as perdas são trágicas: "é uma imensa tragédia" e é
preciso "descobrir a causa e apurar a responsabilidade", disse,
citado pela Folha.
Oferecido por um rico comerciante à família real portuguesa
quando esta chegou em 1808 ao Rio de Janeiro para escapar às tropas
napoleónicas, o Palácio de São Cristóvão foi residência de D. Maria I até à
morte em 1816 e de D. João VI até regressar a Lisboa em 1821. Lá viveu D. Pedro
I do Brasil (IV de Portugal) e lá nasceu a nossa D. Maria II, além de D. Pedro
II do Brasil, ambos filhos da imperatriz Leopoldina, uma Habsburgo.
Segundo o jornal A Folha de São Paulo, 80 bombeiros de
vários quartéis tentaram controlar as chamas, que perduraram noite dentro. O
ministro português da Cultura, Luís Castro Mendes, foi um dos primeiros em
Portugal a alertar para o incêndio via Facebook, falando de "um mau
momento para o Brasil".
O presidente brasileiro Michael Temer já falou de
"perda incalculável para o Brasil", embora não se saiba que parte dos
20 milhões de itens foi destruída. Entre o acervo do museu está o mais antigo
fóssil humano encontrado no Brasil.
O Museu Nacional era gerido atualmente pela Universidade
Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Desde há muito havia críticas ao estado de
conservação do palácio e estavam prometido investimentos no museu, que este ano
fez dois séculos e nasceu da iniciativa de D. João VI, que viveu 13 anos no Rio
de Janeiro e deixou outros legados à cidade, como o Jardim Botânico.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário