A fire destroys the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro

The building was heavily damaged by a large fire which began about 19:30 local time (23:30 UTC) on 2 September 2018.

Although some items were saved, it is believed that 92.5% of its archive of 20 million items were destroyed in the fire, though circa 1.5 million items are stored in a separate building, which were not damaged.

First responders fighting the fire were hindered by a lack of water. Rio's fire chief claimed that two nearby fire hydrants had insufficient water, leaving firefighters to resort to pumping water from a nearby lake. According to a CEDAE (Rio de Janeiro's Water and Sewerage State Company [pt]) employee, although the hydrants did have water, the water pressure was very low, due to the fact that the building is on top of a hill. Brazil President Michel Temer claimed the loss due to the fire to be too great to have been predicted.