By Emerson Kinge – Thursday October 31, 2019.
The main building of the Shuri Castle, a 500-year-old UNESCO World Heritage site in Japan’s Okinawa, has burnt down, 02:40 local time, Thursday October 31, 2019, National Telegraph has learned.
The police are investigating the cause of the fire and said there has been no immediate report of injuries as a result of the inferno.
More than 100 Firefighters battled for over ten (10) hours to put out flames but strong winds deflated their efforts. Reports say the wooden castle was almost completely destroyed during World War II and was later reconstructed.
The city’s Mayor, Mikiko Shiroma said; “The city will now do everything in its power to deal with the fire and its aftermath”
The castle served as a campus for Okinawa’s largest public university until the 1970s, and has been a popular tourist attraction since, reports say.
This largest wooden building in Okinawa was scheduled as a stop on the 2020 Tokyo Olympic torch relay route,
