A fire occurred on the morning of August 3 at 66 Nguyen Thai Hoc Street, Hanoi, destroying nearly 12,000 rare books about Hanoi, owned by a collector named Nguyen Van Thanh.

Thanh collected his volume of valuable books over four decades.

The books were preserved at Thanh’s apartment. The fire happened when the family was not at home. It was stamped out after half an hour by four fire trucks. However, they couldn’t save the books.

“This collection included ancient books which were written nearly one century ago, for example a set of historical books written by the French in the early 20^th century which had been translated in Vietnamese already,” Thanh said sadly.

Police are investigating the cause of the fire.

Some photos of the fire:

PV