160-million-year-old fossil bone feared gutted in Delhi museum blaze

A 160-million-year-old fossil bone, the left femur of the Indian Sauropod Dinosaur, is one of the priceless artefacts jeopardised in the fire that raged through the FICCI auditorium building that housed the National Museum of Natural History in the capital early Tuesday.

The museum also has a collection of dinosaur egg fossils of the Sauropod, Rajasaurus and Theropod – different genus of dinosaurs believed to have existed in India. Some of these were on display. There was also a life-size replica of a dinosaur right at the entrance to the museum, which may have escaped damage since it was the two topmost floors that faced the worst of the fire's ravages.

The museum, set up in 1972 by then prime minister Indira Gandhi, also has a vast collection of stuffed and mounted specimens of different kinds of animals and butterflies, jars filled with various kinds of snakes and insects preserved in chemical, and so on. It also had a collection of bird nests and eggs – those of exotic or endangered species such as the ostrich and long-billed vulture, or common ones such as the Red-Vented Bulbul and Red-Wattled Lapwing.

"Most of the display galleries were on the first three floors of the museum," said an officer in the arts section who had worked at the museum for 20 years, sitting on the kerb opposite at noon, looking up at the smoke still drifting out. "The first two floors have not been damaged, but the third floor, which housed the conservation gallery has been affected. The fifth and sixth floor seem to be completely gutted; the sixth floor had our offices and the fifth housed the taxidermy lab, art studio, and the reserve stocks," he said.

"We are not being allowed inside the building. Once there, we will assess the damage," said museum director B Venugopal. "This's an old building," he said, "but there has been no problem. There was regular maintenance. We had an annual maintenance contract for fire and checks done every month." Venugopal denied initial reports in the media that the fire-safety systems in the building had failed to work. The fire, which started late in the night, took more than four hours and 35 fire engines to bring under control.

Minister of environment and forests Prakash Javadekar, whose ministry has jurisdiction over the museum, visited the site in central Delhi early in the morning, and announced a safety audit of all museums under him. Asked about fire safety norms at the museum, the minister said, "This is a rented property. It's not the ministry's property, but that of the FICCI. Therefore, we have limitations. The issue is that this is a real loss and we will assess the loss when the building is again handed over to us. We will see how the recovery plan can be made."

In October last, the museum was allotted 6.5 acres of land in nearby Purana Qila complex for a permanent structure to house its collection. In January, Verner Johnson, leading museum designers, won an international competition to design a 3,40,000 sqft state-of-the-art complex.