BBC BBC.

BBC.

Hello and thank you for downloading Witness from the BBC World Service with me Alex Last

and today we go back to November 1995 when in one night one of Madagascar's most important

historic sites was destroyed by fire. It was a sacred site, the principal historic tragedy for Madagascar.

And it was a real tragedy for Madagascar. One of Madagascar's most important historic buildings has been hit by fire today.

The fire at the Queen's Palace started at 6 PM this evening and is still raging.

The palace or the river, as it is called.

That day was incredibly dry, very, very hot, gusting winds and lots of dust in the air and

smog and things like that.

It was absolutely ideal for something awful like that to happen.

Simon Pierce, a textile specialist in art historian, has

lived in Madagascar for decades. On the 6th of November 1995 he was in the capital,

Antano Reeve. It was about six or seven in the evening. There was a sort of buzz going around the town and looking up at the palace which can be seen basically from anywhere in town.

There was a sort of faint glow, red glow

that you could see, and there was obviously a fire in the vicinity.

That, I think most people sort of ignored to start with but then I suppose within an hour or

so that you could see there were clearly beginnings of some big inferno.

The palace complex complex was made up of quite a number of different buildings.

It dominates the hill on which the capital of Madagascar is built and Tananarieve.

It was a spectacular site.

It has one principal building in the middle which is really enormous.

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