Federal Probe Launched After Fire Destroys UFPE Research Building

Overview

• The fire broke out on Wednesday night, Oct. 7, and consumed the former Dine building at UFPE’s Cidade Universitária; the blaze was controlled and no one was injured.
• UFPE’s rector estimated about R$100 million in direct losses and said the blaze destroyed roughly 20 years of samples and records that supported about 200 research projects and dozens of theses.
• The Polícia Federal opened a criminal inquiry and dispatched federal peritos, including specialists from the Instituto Nacional de Criminalística, using drones and robots to document the site while the cause remains unconfirmed.
• The Ministry of Education pledged funds to repurchase equipment (estimated at R$100 million) and to build a new research facility with R$28 million, and it offered scholarship extensions and placements for affected researchers in partner institutions abroad and in Brazil.
• This was the third fire at UFPE in about eight days, raising urgent questions about campus lab safety and preservation of irreplaceable biosamples, and officials say reconstruction will wait for pericial clearance and further forensic findings.