Many see signs of national decay in museum fire
RIO DE JANEIRO — Smoke rose Monday from the burnedout 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 tear gas and batons.
The museum’s director said a portion of the collection was destroyed and that it was not yet possible to say how much. But the deputy director suggested that the damage could be catastrophic.
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.
On Monday, the building was still standing, but much of it appeared to have been gutted.
It was not clear how the fire began Sunday night, 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.
The museum has suffered underfunding for years that prevented renovations and forced it to close exhibits. The Folha de S. Paulo newspaper reported in May that the annual budget for the museum 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 recently secured approval for a planned renovation, including an upgrade of the fire-prevention system, said Alexander Kellner, the museum’s director. “Look at the irony. The money is now there, but we ran out of time,” he said.
Luiz Fernando Dias Duarte, the deputy director, noted another irony: He said museum officials were seeking renovation funds in 2013, at the same time that Brazil was spending millions to build stadiums for the World Cup, which it hosted the following year.
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.