The historic Shuri Castle was destroyed after a major fire broke out in Japan's southern island of Okinawa, destroying the UNESCO World Heritage site. The fire in Naha, the prefectural capital of Okinawa, started from the castle's main structure and quickly spread to other buildings. Three large halls and four other structures burned down in the fire.
The firefighters brought the situation under control in the afternoon after battling it out for 12 hours. No one suffered injuries.
In the video, parts of the Shuri Castle engulfed in orange flames, then turning into a charred skeleton and collapsing to the ground.
The castle is a symbol of Okinawa’s cultural heritage from the time of the Ryukyu Kingdom that spanned about 450 years from 1429 until 1879, when the island was annexed by Japan.
It is also a symbol of Okinawa’s struggle and efforts to recover from World War II. The castle burned down in 1945 during the Battle of Okinawa near the war’s end, in which about 200,000 lives were lost on the island, many of them civilians.
The castle was largely restored in 1992 as a national park and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2000 as part of a group of ancient ruins, castles and sacred sites that “provide mute testimony to the rare survival of an ancient form of religion into the modern age.”
(With AP inputs)
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