Five traditional Aboriginal fishing boats and 34 exhibits burned to cinders on Tuesday evening at a newly opened prehistory museum in Taitung County, eastern Taiwan.
Museum officials yesterday estimated total losses at roughly NT$2.1 million.
The fire was initially spotted at 6:40pm. The blaze started in an exhibition hall on the second floor at the National Museum of Prehistory, which opened on July 10.
According to eyewitness reports, the fire turned into a roaring inferno within minutes. Firefighters put the blaze out after two hours.
An initial investigation blamed the fire on an electrical short-circuit.
The fire demolished a room in the second exhibition hall that featured Austronesian exhibits.
The blaze also destroyed the ceilings of adjacent rooms and covered every display room in the four-storey building with soot, said Huang Kuo-En (
Exhibitions featuring ancient Chinese artifacts on loan from the National Palace Museum -- which remain intact because they were located in a separate building -- will be closed for three days.
But the rest of the museum will be closed for an indefinite period, depending on the time needed for restoration, Huang said.
Huang said the most serious loss was five traditional Aboriginal fishing boats of the Tao Tribe (
One of the large, twelve-seat fishing boats was bought for NT$600,000, Huang said.
There are only a few of the boats left in Taiwan because the Taos' aging boatbuilders have long stopped making the fishing vessels.
Most of the remaining exhibits were saved, as a fire-prevention door automatically shut after the fire started.
But renovation work will still be required throughout the entire building due to smoke and water damage, Huang said.
People First Party lawmaker Diane Lee (
The museum's director, Chen Yi-yi (陳義一), said construction had proceeded according to a pre-arranged schedule, and that "there was absolutely no sloppy work in order to make the deadline."
Officials at the museum and the Ministry of Education, its supervisory department, are launching investigations and mapping out contingency measures -- including plans for compensation.
Museum officials said that since the museum opened two weeks ago, more than 50,000 people have visited.
The high number of visitors indicates that the museum has played a vital role in chronicling the prehistorical culture of Aborigines, officials said.
Museum officials hope that given their limited funding, the government will provide assistance financially to allow the institution to survive the aftermath of the fire.
The museum -- which cost NT$ 3.7 billion to build on ten hectares -- took 11 years to plan and complete. It houses ancient artifacts dating back 3,000 years and is considered a major national project.
The museum is also in charge of the 18 hectares that make up the Pyuma Tribe Cultural Park (
The archeological site of the Pyuma tribe is one of the richest discoveries unearthed by Taiwan's archeologists in the 1980s.
More than 800 items of the Pyuma tribe's ancient artifacts are currently on display at the museum.
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