Accusations fly after fire ruins Brazilian museum
RIO DE JANEIRO — Smoke rose Monday from the burned-out hulk of Brazil’s National Museum, as recriminations flew over who was responsible for a huge fire that destroyed at least part of Latin America’s largest collection of historical artifacts and documents.
A few hundred protesters who gathered outside the museum gates tried several times to push into the site, demanding to see the damage and calling on the government to rebuild. Police held the crowd back with pepper spray, tear gas and batons.
The museum’s director said a portion of the collection was destroyed and that it was impossible to say yet how much. But the deputy director suggested that the damagecould be catastrophic, with most objects in the main building probably lost.
The main building, which was once the home of the Brazilian royal family, housed a collection of 20 million items that included Egyptian and Greco-Roman relics and the oldest human skull found in the Western hemisphere, known as Luzia.
It was not clear how the fire began Sunday evening, when the museum was closed. But the flames quickly fueled criticism of Brazil’s dilapidated infrastructure and budget deficits as the nation prepares for national elections in October.
Several officials have said the building was known to be in serious disrepair and at significant risk of catching fire.
Themuseumhassuffered underfunding for years that prevented renovations and forced it to close exhibits. The Folha de S. Paulo newspaper reported in May that its annual budget had fallen from around $130,000 in 2013 to around $84,000 last year.
In a sign of how strapped the museum was, when a termite infestation last year forced the closure of a room containing a 39- foot dinosaur skeleton, officials turned to crowdfunding to raise the money to reopen the room.
The institution had re- cently secured approval for a planned renovation, including an upgrade of the fireprevention system, Alexander Kellner, the museum’s director said.
“Look at the irony. The money is now there, but we ran out of time,” he said.
On Monday, President Michel Temer announced that private and public banks, as well as mining giant Vale and state-run oil company Petrobras, have agreed to help rebuild the museum and reconstitute its collections.
French President Emmanuel Macron offered in a tweet to send experts to help.
Fire department spokesman Roberto Robadey said firefighters got off to a slow start because the two fire hydrants closest to the museum did not work. Instead, trucks had to gather water from a nearby lake.
“This fire is what Brazilian politicians are doing to the people,” said Rosana Hollanda, a 35-year-old high school teacher, who was crying Monday at the gates. “They’re burning our history, and they’re burning our dreams.”