# data[].attributes.body
this news station tweets about the devastation giving facts about when the fire occurred as well as providing followers with facts of the items lost within the fire, the tweet also provides followers of the account with links where they can read more about the fire as well as pictures of the unfortunate event.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
Huge fire engulfs Brazil's 200-year-old National Museum, causing probably the loss of over 20 million items https://t.co/qVQPbLIssB #BrazilMuseum pic.twitter.com/iG8erINmmh
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) September 3, 2018

# data[].attributes.body
The New Yorker blog felt that more than just history was lost with he fire, the blog goes on to state that a piece of the country burned away with the museum. it was on of the countries biggest tourist attraction. jobs were lost along with years if scientific and archaeological research.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mirani Barros was in a cab, heading back to her apartment in Rio de Janeiro, when she saw flames in the distance and wondered aloud to the driver whether some trees had caught fire. They were passing the gates of the Quinta da Boa Vista, the lush municipal park that houses the National Museum. It was the night of September 2nd. When Barros got home, she began receiving text messages from friends, urging her to turn on the TV: the museum was engulfed in flames. She went to her window to look. For the next few hours, she moved from the window to the images on the screen and back, as the sounds of explosions got louder, and the billows of smoke grew thicker.

Barros, who is thirty-seven, grew up in the small city of Barra Mansa, the daughter of working-class parents. She started college there, then transferred to the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, the public university that runs the National Museum. After graduating, she worked for a while in the state of Rio de Janeiro's Department of Human Rights and Social Assistance, focussed on food-security policies-"low-income restaurants, food banks, that kind of thing," she told me. She noticed that obesity was always treated as a strictly medical condition, with none of the interdisciplinary sensibility given to other topics. Most obese Brazilians were black women, like her, and poor; Barros wanted to investigate whether there were other ways to think about the issue. She got a master's degree at another public university and became interested in anthropology.

The National Museum's doctoral program in social anthropology is considered one of the best in Latin America. Barros applied after taking a six-class seminar offered by black graduates of the program, who help students hoping to take the entrance exam via the museum's affirmative-action system. She passed a written test and a project evaluation, then had an oral exam and interview, on August 30th. When I met her recently, a few days after the fire, I asked her how she did. "Oh, I killed it," she said, laughing at her boldness. The final results were to be published on September 28th. When Barros was watching the flames outside her window, she thought of the museum's collections from ancient Egypt, and an archaeologist friend who had just been selected to manage a section of the palace. It was a while before she realized that the documents pertaining to her examination had also been lost in the fire.

The stories that have emerged in the days since the fire at the National Museum have been harrowing. Paulo Buckup, a zoology professor who specializes in fish and molecular diversity in vertebrates, broke down doors and ran into the burning palace, grabbing drawers full of specimens of mollusks. His colleague Alexander Kellner, the director of the museum, went on national television and described the experience of stepping into the museum while the fire was blazing. The flames had not yet reached the floor where his office was located, but he was told by a firefighter that nothing could be done: the hydrants at the site were not working. Many foreign correspondents have reached for analogies to give readers a sense of the disaster, but it's hard to convey the museum's significance: in addition to containing one of the richest collections of natural-history artifacts in the world, it was one of Latin America's leading centers for postgraduate studies. It's as if, in New York, the American Museum of Natural History and the New School, or a part of the Columbia campus, had been built on the same spot, and then was reduced to ashes.

I visited the site four days after the fire. The museum's building and the garden at its entrance had been cordoned off. A few TV reporters and camera crews stood around, picking up statements from passersby. Papers flapped in the wind, hanging from a single clothesline that had been improvised on the grass: statements from other institutions and universities, showing support in the wake of the tragedy. Most of these statements were rather formal, buttoned-up, but one of them evoked the political anger that has risen in the wake of the fire. "Neo-fascists hate the universities," it read.

The museum burned down; the country is burning down-that metaphor has been uttered repeatedly, in solemn tones, since the disaster. The more I heard it, the more I resented it, because it seemed facile and even sentimental, the kind of thing that people say when, bombarded and numbed by the news cycle, they need to convey empathy. But, then, I had no personal connection to the museum. It was only when I saw my wife, who grew up in Rio, shouting at a picture of the burning palace, that I realized how much it meant to people.

The museum was founded by Dom João VI, who was then king of Portugal, in 1818; after Brazilian independence, in 1822, it doubled as the residence of the imperial family. (The day that I visited, the emperor Dom Pedro II's statue seemed to be intact.) There was a time when the museum embodied the most racist notions of its day. "At the end of the nineteenth century, the National Museum was the center of scientific determinism in Brazil," Gustavo Pacheco, who studied and worked there for six years, told me. "They measured craniums and that sort of thing. It's a history full of contradictions, just as Brazilian history is full of contradictions. But a country needs these places to understand itself."

Pacheco himself has a deep love for the place. A diplomat, he now works at the culture department of the Federal District, in Brasília, where he oversees a memorial for indigenous peoples. He did his doctorate in social anthropology, in the same program to which Barros is applying. He also worked as a researcher in ethnomusicology at the museum. He is still waiting to hear what happened to invaluable old recordings from the Pareci and Nambikwara tribes, though he has little hope that they have been saved. Pacheco was promoting his first collection of short stories-a book he wrote over several years, drawing partly on his research at the museum-when he started receiving messages on his phone. "I got into the car, and before turning on the engine I cried for, like, fifteen minutes, in front of my two children," he said.

Pacheco does not hesitate to connect the disaster to the larger issues facing the country. "No one in their right mind would claim that institutions are working," he said. But he also balks at attempts to pin the fire on a single administration. "Everyone knows that the neglect had been there for decades," he said. "In 1999, when I started my Ph.D., the museum already had this aura of decay, it was already full of termites. Ask people about the smell. It was a very peculiar smell."

Barros's son lives with his grandmother in Barra Mansa, and visits his mother on weekends. They have picnics amid the lush greenery at the Quinta da Boa Vista, but Barros had always postponed taking him to see the collections and artifacts: she believed that a visit to the museum wasn't something trivial, to be done quickly, and she figured that the relics would always be there. She would lie with her son on the grass surrounding the palace, and sometimes she would say, "It was the Republic that gave us permission to lie down on the prince's grass."

The site of the National Museum, an ostentatious palace that once propagated racist ideas, had become one of the few places in the city where people from different backgrounds mixed. Far away from the wealthier Zona Sul, it sits near two train stations, with easy access for residents from poorer neighborhoods and districts. "I have absolute certainty that the National Museum was the first, and perhaps even the only museum for many people," Barros told me. Growing up, she visited the museum twice on tours organized by her public school. "To me, Rio de Janeiro was the National Museum, Christ the Redeemer, and a stop at Bob's," she said, referring to a local fast-food chain where the bus used to stop when she travelled to the capital.

A few days after the fire, Barros received a note from the department of social anthropology saying that the application process was suspended until further notice, and that they would be in touch. "I've started studying for another program, just in case this one doesn't pan out," she told me. Compounding her anxiety is a sense of loss at all the materials and books destroyed by the fire. So much of the media coverage has focussed on artifacts, and has overlooked the research that was being undertaken within the institution's walls, she said, adding that this reflects a "common belief that a museum is a place where only old stuff is kept." But the country didn't just lose history, she said. "We lost our present-there were so many master's-level and doctorate-level research projects going on in there-and we jeopardized part of our future, for a good while."

It had rained during the morning on the day that I visited, but by the afternoon the sun was out, and an unseasonably cool breeze was blowing. Two firefighters left the cordoned-off area and strolled in the shade of the trees surrounding the palace. I had heard rumors that some college students from U.F.R.J. were helping scan the wreckage inside the building for precious items and artifacts, and I asked them about this. One of them laughed a little, perhaps offended at the idea that they'd need any help. "It's all destroyed inside, man," he said. "It's dangerous to even go in." He looked at the façade and pointed at the palace's windows. "Shitload of wood in those rooms."

On September 10th, the President of Brazil, Michel Temer, announced the creation of the Brazilian Agency for Museums, which he said would lead the reconstruction process. Depending on the poll, Temer's approval rating stands somewhere between three and five per cent; the announcement is widely perceived as a halfhearted effort to save face. Rebuilding is unlikely to move forward soon. The investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing.

I gazed at the palace. The soot and grime on the stone façades were like the marks seen on any decaying building in downtown Rio. The good weather and the green surroundings of the park seemed to give back to the place some of its grandiosity. But, looking harder at the narrow window gaps in the distance, one could see the destruction inside: rooms blackened, surviving walls charred or discolored, depending on where the sunlight hit. A façade of normalcy, with everything rotted inside. This time, the metaphor seemed right.

Alejandro Chacoff is a writer living in Rio de Janeiro, and a staff writer at piauí magazine.
Read more "

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Brazil Lost More Than the Past in the National Museum Fire

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Mirani Barros was in a cab, heading back to her apartment in Rio de Janeiro, when she saw flames in the distance and wondered aloud to the driver whether some trees had caught fire. They were passing the gates of the Quinta da Boa Vista, the lush municipal park that houses the National Museum.

# data[].attributes.body
qz.com provided readers of their blog photos of the of the museum before, during and after it was consumed by flames. the website posted pictures of the devastated reactions of civilians looking at the flames in and the aftermath of their one beloved museum. readers/viewers also got an example of the destruction as the blog provided readers with photos of destroyed artifacts that were in perfect archaeological condition before the fire.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Brazilian President Michel Temer has called the loss incalculable.

On Sunday, the country's 200-year-old National Museum was gutted by a fire that began Saturday night. More than 20 million priceless artifacts were housed in the building, in Rio de Janeiro, including "Luzia," a 12,000-year-old skeleton, the oldest human remains in the Americas.

"It is an unbearable catastrophe. It is 200 years of this country's heritage," Luiz Fernando Dias Duarte, a vice director at the museum, told Brazilian media. "It is 200 years of memory. It is 200 years of science. It is 200 years of culture, of education."

How the fire began remains unknown, but employees had reportedly been warning of the potential for such a catastrophe because of the building's disrepair. Local media are calling the fire a tragédia anunciada, or foretold tragedy. Luzia's "dad," the anthropologist who discovered the remains, had also raised concerns about the lack of maintenance.

Firefighters reportedly did not have enough water in nearby fire hydrants to battle the flames, and instead had to source it from a nearby lake. Horrified onlookers, including museum staff, also joined the rescue efforts, carrying what they could away from the burning building.

The building was once a royal palace, but was converted into a museum in 1892, and is now a part of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Among its collection were Egyptian and Greco-Roman artifacts, dinosaurs and other fossils, and invaluable historical objects, including artwork, tools, weapons, and musical instruments from Brazil's indigenous people. It was also home to the mummified bodies of a woman and two children thought to have lived 600 years before Europeans arrived to the country. It was a collection considered "fundamental to world history," said the museum's director, Paulo Knauss, who called the inferno "a pitiful tragedy."

Most of the exhibits are thought to have been destroyed; one of the few items likely to survive is a meteorite found in 1784.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Photos: Fire at Brazil's National Museum destroys thousands of years of history

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Brazilian President Michel Temer has called the loss incalculable. On Sunday, the country's 200-year-old National Museum was gutted by a fire that began Saturday night. More than 20 million priceless artifacts were housed in the building, in Rio de Janeiro, including "Luzia," a 12,000-year-old skeleton, the oldest human remains in the Americas.

# data[].attributes.body
After the fire was put out the streets of Brazil were flooding with enraged protesters as they felt that the museums was heavily underfunded which caused for a lack of security persuasions that could have stooped the fire. Protesters blame the government for not providing enough funds to one of the countries biggest staples and are in hopes artifacts can be saved and production of the museum can begin as soon as possible.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Anger smouldered in Brazil on Monday after a fire destroyed the National Museum, a cherished historical repository that lacked a sprinkler system and which had suffered years of financial neglect.

Outside the entrance to the elegant park that houses the 200-year-old former Imperial Palace, police in riot gear shot tear gas into a small, angry crowd that tried to enter, live TV images showed.

The rising tensions reflect anger over the destruction of the much-loved yet dilapidated museum, which suffered from declining federal funding. The fire stirred emotions in Brazil, whose angry electorate is reeling from a frail economy, widespread graft and rising violence ahead of an unpredictable presidential election in October.

"Our community is very mobilized, and very indignant," said Roberto Leher, the rector of the Rio de Janeiro federal university, which administers the museum. "We all knew the building was vulnerable."

Authorities have yet to say what caused Sunday's fire.

Brazil's culture minister Sergio Leitao told the Estado de S.Paulo newspaper that the blaze was likely caused by either an electrical short-circuit or a homemade paper hot-air balloon that may have landed on the roof. Launching such balloons is a long-held tradition in Brazil and they routinely cause fires.

The culture ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The museum's pastel yellow facade remained standing but a peek inside its giant windows revealed a roofless interior of blackened hallways and charred beams. Every so often, firefighters emerged with a pot or a painting they had managed to rescue.

Researchers, students and others who worked in the museum, where 20 million artifacts were likely destroyed, huddled in groups outside, consoling one another and wiping away tears.

But as the day progressed, ever more people tried to enter the park to get a glimpse of the building's burned shell and police eventually opened entry to the park.

​

Luiz Duarte, vice-director of the museum, told Globo TV the institution had been neglected by successive federal governments, and that a 21.6 million real ($6.85 million Cdn) financing plan with the state-run development bank BNDES announced in June included, ironically, a plan to install modern fire protection equipment.

Duarte also 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.

"The money spent on each one of those stadiums - a quarter of that would have been enough to make this museum safe and resplendent," he told Brazilian TV. He said the responsibility for the museum's destruction lay squarely with federal authorities.

Fire hydrants dry, no sprinklers

Roberto Robadey, commander of the Rio fire department, told reporters on Monday the hydrants outside the building were dry, which forced firefighters to use water from a nearby lake and rely on water trucks. But the building burned too fast for any of that to help.

"In an ideal world, we would have many things that we don't have here: sprinklers inside the building," he said, adding that the fire department would investigate its response and take action if needed. "Yesterday was one of the saddest days of my career."

The museum is not the first to burn down in Brazil, where public money for cultural projects has been falling after a deep recession. In 2015, for example, the prestigious Museum of the Portuguese Language in Sao Paulo was destroyed by a fire.

In 2016, President Michel Temer was forced to reinstate the Culture Ministry after an outcry from some of the country's top artists over his policy to fold it into the Education Ministry to save money.

On Monday, his office said he had met with representatives from major Brazilian companies and banks to look into ways to help rebuild the museum "as soon as possible."

​

Renato Rodriguez Cabral, a teacher in the geology and paleontology department, said the museum's decline did not happen overnight.

"This was a tragedy foretold," Cabral said as he hugged students and coworkers. "Successive governments would not provide funds, they would not invest in infrastructure."

Cabral said the building received new wiring about 15 years ago, but that clearly there was not a sufficient plan to protect the museum from fire, adding: "The firefighters basically could only watch the blaze."

The National Museum's collection ranged from archeological finds to historical memorabilia.

The museum, which is tied to the Rio de Janeiro federal university and the education ministry, was founded in 1818 and housed several landmark collections, including Egyptian artifacts and the oldest human fossil found in Brazil.

The destruction of the building, where emperors once lived, was an "incalculable loss for Brazil," Temer said in a statement.

His office did not respond to requests for comment on widespread allegations of neglect.
With files from The Associated Press

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'This was a tragedy foretold': Brazil's National Museum lacked funding before fire | CBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Anger smouldered in Brazil on Monday after a fire destroyed the National Museum, a cherished historical repository that lacked a sprinkler system and which had suffered years of financial neglect. Outside the entrance to the elegant park that houses the 200-year-old former Imperial Palace, police in riot gear shot tear gas into a small, angry crowd that tried to enter, live TV images showed.

# data[].attributes.body
Alex Wild took to twitter with his concerns about the hundreds of different types of spider specimens lost within the fire that destroyed the museum in Rio. Alex stated that specimens lost were the legal anchors to the biological species. Alex's concerns were heard around the twitter community as the tweet got 167 retweets reaching many twitter profiles.

# data[].attributes.body
Jonathan Watts too to twitter on September 2nd talking about the loss stating that the destruction of the fire was one of the biggest losses of insidiousness history for Latin america in the world. Jonathan's tweet was heard by many of his twitter followers who were very sympathetic for the cause.

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.text
Brazil’s National Museum kept one of the best collections of indigenous literature and artefacts in the world. “This is the greatest loss of indigenous writing in Latin America”, said Urutau Guajajara as he looked on at the fire. “Our memory has been erased”.

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.original_text
Brazil’s National Museum kept one of the best collections of indigenous literature and artefacts in the world. “This is the greatest loss of indigenous writing in Latin America”, said Urutau Guajajara as he looked on at the fire. “Our memory has been erased”.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
Brazil’s National Museum kept one of the best collections of indigenous literature and artefacts in the world. “This is the greatest loss of indigenous writing in Latin America”, said Urutau Guajajara as he looked on at the fire. “Our memory has been erased”.
— jonathanwatts (@jonathanwatts) September 3, 2018

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
Brazil’s National Museum kept one of the best collections of indigenous literature and artefacts in the world. “This is the greatest loss of indigenous writing in Latin America”, said Urutau Guajajara as he looked on at the fire. “Our memory has been erased”.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Brazil’s National Museum kept one of the best collections of indigenous literature and artefacts in the world. “This is the greatest loss of indigenous writing in Latin America”, said Urutau Guajajara as he looked on at the fire. “Our memory has been erased”.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
Brazil’s National Museum kept one of the best collections of indigenous literature and artefacts in the world. “This is the greatest loss of indigenous writing in Latin America”, said Urutau Guajajara as he looked on at the fire. “Our memory has been erased”.

# data[].attributes.body
mansionsofthegildedage is an Instagram page that posts pictures of some of the most interesting and intelligently developed architectural structures around the world. the page tool to Instagram letting their followers know about the devastation and where they could read about it. the page posted a disturbing picture of the building engulfed in flames surrounded by what seems like a never ending cloud dark smoke. the page wrote about the 20 million pieces of history lost in the fire and gave followers a link to CNN where they could read more about the fire.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gary Lawrance Architect/Author on Instagram: "The Brazil National Museum burned yesterday in a devastating fire. Not only the loss of a magnificent historic building but supposedly 20 Million pieces of art, artifacts, documents, paintings and sculpture. The building was a former palace and had many opulent interiors now lost forever. See the CNN link at the top of the page here to read about the fire and the museums lost collections and history of the building. #brazilmuseum #brazilmuseumfire"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
3,521 likes, 413 comments - mansionsofthegildedage on September 3, 2018: "The Brazil National Museum burned yesterday in a devastating fire. Not only the loss of a magnificent historic building but supposedly 20...". 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Gary Lawrance Architect/Author (@mansionsofthegildedage)

# data[].attributes.headline
What Does the Destruction Mean For Science?

# data[].attributes.subject
What Does the Destruction Mean For Science?

# data[].attributes.body
National Geographic has expressed that the scientific community is at a great loss with the destruction of invaluable valuable artifacts. the blog states that many valuable anthropological Antarctica were destroyed within the fire. with the lose of the artifacts came a lose of found knowledge, which will be very difficult to rediscover.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Major pieces of Brazil's scientific and cultural heritage went up in smoke on September 2, as a devastating fire ripped through much of Rio de Janeiro's Museu Nacional, or National Museum. Founded in 1818, the museum is Brazil's oldest scientific institution and one of the largest and most renowned museums in Latin America, amassing a collection of some 20 million scientifically and culturally invaluable artifacts.

The Museu Nacional's holdings include Luzia, an 11,500-year-old skull considered one of South America's oldest human fossils, as well as the bones of uniquely Brazilian creatures such as the long-necked dinosaur Maxakalisaurus. Because of the auction tastes of Brazil's 19th-century emperors, the Museu Nacional also ended up with Latin America's oldest collection of Egyptian mummies and artifacts.

Even the building holds historical importance: It housed the exiled Portuguese royal family from 1808 to 1821, after they fled to Rio de Janeiro in 1807 to escape Napoleon. The complex also served as the palace for Brazil's post-independence emperors until 1889, before the museum collections were transferred there in 1902.

In an September 5 email, Museu Nacional curator Débora Pires wrote that the entomology and arachnology collections were completely destroyed, as was most of the mollusk collection. However, technicians had braved the fire to save 80 percent of the mollusk holotypes-the specimens that formally serve as the global references for a given species. The museum's vertebrate specimens, herbarium, and library were housed separately and survived the fire.

And Pires noted that the Museu Nacional still has its most valuable asset: its people, in the form of the institution's master's and doctoral programs in social anthropology, archaeology, botany, geosciences, linguistics, and zoology. "The brains did not burn," she wrote. "We are working with a positive agenda!"

Staff are still assessing the damage to the rest of the collections housed in the Museu Nacional's main building. The iconic structure was home to the museum's ethnology, ethnography, linguistics, geology, and paleontology collections, as well as 5,000 exhibition pieces and the Francisca Keller Library, one of Brazil's most important libraries on the social sciences.

Some of the metal cabinets containing fossils may have withstood the fire, Federal University of Espírito Santo paleontologist Taissa Rodrigues said in an email, though it's unclear whether the fossils inside survived. And even if so, vast swaths of those holdings have been damaged or lost forever, dealing a grievous blow to Brazil's, and to the world's, heritage.

"When I saw the news about the tragedy, I just started crying, and all my colleagues, other archaeologists I know in Brazil, they had the same reaction-that's a loss for all the world," says Maria Ester Franklin Maia Silva, a Brazilian archaeologist and Ph.D. student at the University of São Paulo.

An Irreplaceable Loss

It's not yet clear how the fire started, but it did begin after the museum was closed to the public, and no injuries have yet been reported. Firefighters worked through the night to douse the burnt-out shell of the main building, but it seems the blaze has already seared a gaping hole in many scientists' careers.

"The importance of the collections that were lost couldn't be overstated," says Luiz Rocha, a Brazilian ichthyologist now at the California Academy of Sciences who has visited the Museu Nacional several times to study its collections. "They were unique as it gets: Many of them were irreplaceable, there's no way to put a monetary value on it."

"In terms of [my] life-long research agenda, I'm pretty much lost," says Marcus Guidoti, a Brazilian entomologist finishing up his Ph.D. in a program co-run by Brazil's Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.

Guidoti studies lace bugs, an insect family with more than 2,000 species worldwide. The Museu Nacional held one of the world's largest lace bug collections, but the fire likely destroyed it and the rest of the museum's five million arthropod specimens. "Those type specimens can't be replaced, and they are crucial to understand the species," he says by text message. "If I was willing to keep working on this family in this region of the globe, this was definitely a big hit."

Museums are living, breathing repositories of who we are and where we've come from, and the world around us.

Emilio Bruna, University of Florida

Paleontologist Dimila Mothé, a postdoctoral researcher at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro, adds that the blows to science extend beyond the collections themselves. "It's not only the cultural history, the natural history, but all the theses and research developed there," she says. "Most of the laboratories there were lost, too, and the research of several professors. I'm not sure you can say the impact of what was lost."

Brazil's indigenous knowledge also has suffered. The Museu Nacional housed world-renowned collections of indigenous objects, as well as many audio recordings of indigenous languages from all over Brazil. Some of these recordings, now lost, were of languages that are no longer spoken.

"I have no words to say how horrible this is," says Brazilian anthropologist Mariana Françozo, an expert on South American indigenous objects at Leiden University. "The indigenous collections are a tremendous loss ... we can no longer study them, we can no longer understand what our ancestors did. It's heartbreaking."

On Monday, The Brazilian publication G1 Rio reported that ashes of burned documents-some still flecked in notes or illustrations-have rained down from the sky more than a mile away from the Museu Nacional, thrown aloft by the inferno.

Defunded and in Disrepair

This is not the first time in recent years that the world lost a natural history museum. In April 2016, India's National Museum of Natural History in New Delhi was also destroyed in a fire. Nor is this the first time that fire has claimed an invaluable part of Brazil's heritage.

In 2010, blazes ripped through the Instituto Butantan, a major biomedical research laboratory in São Paulo, destroying one of the world's largest collections of venomous animal specimens. The fire vaporized more than half a million preserved snakes, spiders, and scorpions collected over a hundred years.

"This is far from being a problem unique to Brazil," says the paleontologist Rodrigues. "Collections worldwide are at risk, and unless we take good care of them, these kinds of things will happen again and again and again."

In a statement posted on Twitter, Brazilian president Michael Temer lamented the Museu Nacional's loss as "incalculable to Brazil" and "a sad day for all Brazilians." But the Brazilian government is facing mounting criticism over complaints that the tragedy was preventable.

Since 2014, the Museu Nacional hasn't received its full annual $128,000 maintenance budget; this year, it received a paltry $13,000. In 2015, the Museu Nacional was forced to close its doors temporarily because it could no longer pay its cleaning and security staff. The museum's curators had to crowdfund repairs to termite damage in one of the most popular exhibit halls, which contained the skeleton of a humpback whale and bones from the dinosaur Maxakalisaurus.

In May 2018-on the eve of its 200th anniversary-ten of the museum's 30 exhibits were closed to the public because of disrepair. At the time, the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported that the museum had peeling walls and exposed electrical wiring. When the fire broke out on Sunday, the two fire hydrants near the musem were reportedly empty, forcing firefighters to use water trucks and pond water from Quinta da Boa Vista, the urban park containing the Museu Nacional.

"In my point of view, Brazil had responsibility to keep these artifacts safe, [and] Brazil failed on that," says Franklin Maia Silva.

'We Lose Some of Who We Are'

Already, the Brazilian government has pledged that it will start studying how to rebuild the Museu Nacional. Folha de S.Paulo also reports that culture minister Sérgio Sá Leitão has called for inspections of other Brazilian museums' fire protection systems.

But researchers point out that simply fixing the building will do little to fill the gaping hole in Brazilian science, especially as the country continues to slash research budgets. In March 2017, Temer cut science funding by 44 percent, to $1 billion-the lowest levels since 2005-and in late 2017, he proposed further cuts of another 16 percent. Some of the country's research institutions have struggled to pay for basic amenities such as electricity bills, reports Nature.

"Science in general in Brazil is seen as something we don't need to invest in," says Rocha. "I hope [Brazilian leaders] open their eyes and see that it's worth investing in, besides rebuilding."

"First, there's disbelief that they will really fund the reincorporation of the museum, and [my] second reaction is anger, because they knew the museum needed funding for years," Françozo adds. "How do you 'rebuild' a 200-year-old collection that has burned to ashes?"

In the meantime, local students are working on a rebuilding project of their own: "In the face of tonight's tragedy, the students of the museology course at UNIRIO [the Federal University for the State of Rio de Janeiro] are mobilizing to preserve the memory of the National Museum," the Museu Nacional said in an email. "We ask everyone who possesses images (photographs/videos/even selfies) of the collection and exhibition spaces to share them with us."

The students may well get a submission from Emilio Bruna, an ecologist at the University of Florida. Bruna's work often takes him to Brazil, where he studies habitat fragmentation. But when he recently visited the Museu Nacional with his wife-a native Brazilian-and their children, the family strolled the halls as tourists.

"You walk through this building that was there at the origins of this incredibly rich and vibrant country, you saw people proud to see the fossils of Brazilian dinosaurs-of animals unique to their country. As soon as I found out [about the fire] and blurted it out, my son was in tears. He was just devastated," Bruna says.

"Museums are living, breathing repositories of who we are and where we've come from, and the world around us," he adds. "Those insects pinned in a drawer, or those fish in a jar, or a feathered cape you might see in a display case-that represents a little piece of who we are as a people, as humans, as part of a greater world.

"And when those specimens are lost, we lose some of who we are."

Editor's Note: This story was updated on September 6, 2018, with new details about which artifacts survived the fire.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fire Devastates Brazil's Oldest Science Museum

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Major pieces of Brazil's scientific and cultural heritage went up in smoke on September 2, as a devastating fire ripped through much of Rio de Janeiro's Museu Nacional, or National Museum. Founded in 1818, the museum is Brazil's oldest scientific institution and one of the largest and most renowned museums in Latin America, amassing a collection of some 20 million scientifically and culturally invaluable artifacts.

# data[].attributes.body
Brazil's president Michel Termer expressed his sympathy for the countries loss on twitter, stating that it was a sad time for the country as 200 plus years of history had been lost in fire as well as the destruction of the building that once housed the royal family of Brazil's empire. it is clear that President Termer will provide great efforts to restore what has been lost.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
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
— Michel Temer (@MichelTemer) September 3, 2018

# data[].attributes.body
writers agree that the museum lighting up in flames can be seen as a metaphor for the entire city and country as a whole. the museum was one of Brazil's biggest attractions, and was a staple point for the country. it was also one of Brazil main sources of income as many would fly into the country to view and study some of the valuable artifacts such as the oldest corps found in the Americas. many agree that the country will not be the same until the reconstruction of their world famous museum has begun.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A fire has gutted the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, the oldest scientific institution in the country.

Most of the 20 million items it contained, including the oldest human remains ever found in the Americas, are believed to have been destroyed.

The cause of the blaze is not known. No injuries have been reported.

The museum, located in a building that once served as the residence for the Portuguese royal family, celebrated its 200th anniversary this year.

In pictures: Brazil national museum in flames

The fire started on Sunday evening, after the facility had closed for the day.

Aerial images broadcast on Brazilian television showed it spreading throughout the building.

Brazil's President Michel Temer said in a tweet that it was a "sad day for all Brazilians" as "200 years of work, research and knowledge were lost".

Roberto Robadey, a spokesman for the Rio fire department, is quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying that the hydrants closest to the museum were not working and that firefighters had to get water from a nearby lake.

By Monday morning the fire was under control and some of the museum's pieces had been rescued, he added.

A stark metaphor for a city in crisis
By Katy Watson, BBC South America correspondent
This isn't just Brazilian history that's gone up in flames. Many see this as a metaphor for the city - and the country as a whole.

Rio de Janeiro is in crisis. Growing violence, a deep economic decline and political corruption have combined to make the city a shadow of what it once was. It was only in 2016 that it was hosting the Olympic Games - an event into which Brazil poured billions of dollars.

But the hangover from the sporting event has hit Rio hard. Add to that the fact that federal spending has been slashed, and with violence on the rise, tourism numbers have also declined.

This was a museum that many saw as long ignored and underfunded - now, with devastating consequences for Brazil's heritage.

What did the museum contain?

It was one of the largest museums of natural history and anthropology in the Americas.

Its millions of artefacts included fossils, Brazil's largest meteorite, dinosaur bones and a 12,000-year-old skeleton of a woman known as "Luzia", the oldest ever discovered in the Americas.

The building was also home to items covering the centuries from the arrival of the Portuguese in the 1500s to the declaration of a republic in 1889.

The ethnology collection had unique pieces from the pre-Columbian era and artifacts from indigenous cultures.

Pieces from Greco-Roman times and Egypt were also on display at the museum.

Portugal's royal family transferred the court to the building in 1808, when the country faced with the threat of invasion from Napoleon.

The museum was established in 1818, with the aim of promoting scientific research by making its collection available to specialists.

What has the reaction been?

Marcelo Moreira - a journalist with TV Globo in Rio - told the BBC: "It's very sad... This museum has a great history. It represents a lot for Brazilian history and Brazilian culture. It's really a big loss for Brazil."

In an interview with Globo, the museum's director said it was a "cultural tragedy".

One museum employee told the network that project managers had had "tremendous difficulty" trying to secure funding for "sufficient" resources for the palace.

Another, librarian Edson Vargas da Silva, is quoted by local media describing the building, which he said had wooden floors and contained "a lot of things that burn very fast", such as paper documents.

Employees had reportedly previously expressed concern about funding cuts and the dilapidated state of the premises.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A fire has gutted the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, the oldest scientific institution in the country. Most of the 20 million items it contained, including the oldest human remains ever found in the Americas, are believed to have been destroyed. The cause of the blaze is not known.