Blaze rips through Russian church (dramatic pictures)

[Taxloss]

A fire which broke out at a 19th Century cathedral in the Russian city of St Petersburg has brought down its main blue dome, officials say.
The blaze at the Trinity Cathedral, which started in scaffolding surrounding the main dome, also destroyed one of four smaller domes.

Dozens of firefighters were involved in efforts to put out it out.

Icons and other religious artefacts have been rescued from the cathedral. There are no reports of injuries.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5287394.stm

Pictures:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/5287862.stm

[Xipe Totec]

1. Well, crap!

crap, crap, crap!

I just hate to see that!

:cry:

[maseman]

Probably once a beautiful building

I hate to see when a historic building of any type gets destroyed. What a shame.

[Taxloss]

2. More pictures; mention of possible terrorism

http://englishrussia.com/?p=242

I doubt the terrorism part, it is a wooden structure after all.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Yup

Undergoing renovation too, given the scaffolding.

[Ediacara]

5. BBC photo removing artifacts

This is actually an incredible image.

[tammywammy]

8. That's an amazing picture

They're lucky they could save some artifacts.

[Ediacara]

3. That's too bad

Here's an image before the fire:

ON EDIT: it's clear that the above photo is after the main dome had already collapsed.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. Fortunately no one got hurt

and they were able to save some of the art and icons.

[Benhurst]

7. For anyone interested, here's a good article on the church:

http://www.saint-petersburg.com/cathedrals/Trinity-Cathedral.asp

[Up2Late]

9. This is so sad, here's what it looked like before the fire...

<http://www.unilib.neva.ru/city/churches/church04.html>

<http://www.saint-petersburg.com/cathedrals/Trinity-Cathedral.asp>

Here's more: <http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=13299902&src=rss/worldNews>

[HereSince1628]

10. Sad, I remember being able to see that dome from my hotel

room. I was never inside that cathedral, but I imagine that like most of the cathedrals in SP the inside of the dome had murals and goldleaf that couldn't have been evacuated.