Damascus: A fire at the national theater 10 days before inauguration

Just ten days before a long waited inauguration for the national theater in Syria a fire broke into it and most of its sensitive lightening and sound equipment destroyed.

Preliminary information said that fire started from the Opera Hall, the first of its kind in the country. The Syrian minister of Culture Najah al-Attar stood hiding tears seeing the project of her life embodied in this theater which bears the name "al-Assad house for the arts," while burning.

She has been waiting to inaugurate it after 10 days, following 20 years of continued work, and a cost estimated at 1.5 billion Syrian pounds (US $300 million). Besides tens of Syrian artists and theater actors stood weeping the great loss while the firemen tried to control the fire which lasted for several hours.

The theater building which occupies an area of 6,000 square meters includes Halls for the Opera, Drama, lectures, restaurants, administrative rooms, and sage services rooms and gardens. The Opera house was designed by a British engineer, carried out by the Syrian military housing establishment and the Syrian studies and construction companies supervised the implementation.