IC News and Next Game!
August 22nd, 2016
Reminder this next game is this saturday!
Be there!
Also some IC news from the org!
~Adam
What can only be described as an act of God befell Damascus early in the morning on August 21, 2016. The city awoke in the early hours to massive amounts of destruction and fires. The city is stunned at the amount of damage caused before anyone could react. Fire Marshals speculate that all of the fires were completely ablaze within minutes of the first fire starting. Many famous historical landmarks have been completely razed to the ground.
Among those places damaged or destroyed are areas such as The National Museum of Damascus, The Selahedin Statue, The Arc Gate, The Al Azem Palace, Selahedin Mausoleum, Sayyida Ruqayya Mausoleum, The Citadel, St. Ananias Chapel, Hejaz Railway, Damascus Opera House, Temple of Apollo, Bag Al Saghir, and the Hammam Nureddin bath house among others. Other not so famous areas affected by the fires are the sewer ways and underground tunnels of Damascus. While not completely destroyed, some areas of the sewers were hit with fire and tunnel collapses as well.
Surprisingly, many of the Mosques and Markets of Damascus survived without incident. Places such as the Umayyad Mosque, Omayad Mosque, Souq al-Hamidiyyeh, Takiyya Suleimaniah Souq, Yalbugha Mosque, and the St. George Syrian Orthodox Church were completely undamaged.
So far, even with the immense destruction, the death toll has remained comparatively low. Dozens upon dozens of buildings have been destroyed, sometimes with above average quantities of ash covering the floor. One larger room in Hammam Nureddin was found with a total of 60 centimeters of ashes on the floor surrounding the small bath in the room. Even with all of the ashes, very few bodies have been found. The current estimated death toll is less than 100.