A fire has destroyed all the main structures of Shuri Castle, a Unesco World Heritage site on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa.

Firefighters battled the flames for more than 10 hours, extinguishing them by Thursday afternoon. No injuries have been reported so far. The wooden castle, built 500 years ago, was almost completely destroyed during World War Two. The current structure is a reconstruction. The castle served as a campus for Okinawa’s largest public university until the 1970s, and has been a popular tourist attraction since.

The fire started just before 02:40 local time on Thursday (17:40 GMT Wednesday). It is still unclear what might have triggered it. and was  eventually put out at around 13:30, but all seven key buildings of the castle were burnt down.

Shuri Castle, which was was once the seat of the Ryukyu dynasty, sits on top of a hill overlooking the city of Naha – Okinawa’s capital – and is surrounded by curved stone walls. One resident said the castle was seen as “god-like”. “To us, the Shuri Castle is a god-like existence,” 84-year-old Toyoko Miyazato told the Asahi Shimbun. “I am so sad I don’t know what to say.”

//SC//BBC//