My mind is reeling at the scope of this loss to history

HISTORY IN RUINS: Archive Collapse Disaster for Historians

The Historical Archive of Köln (Cologne in English) collapsed Tuesday, leaving two people missing and presumed dead and millions of documents, photographs, books, and other archival items imperiled. So far 9,000 documents have been recovered, a small percentage of a collection that took up 18 kilometres of shelving and spanned two millennia. Köln's archives were very rare because they survived the destruction of the World War II era completely intact. It was also the largest municipal archive in Germany.

When I was working on my thesis on Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, a native of Köln, I benefited from other scholars who had studied the humanist and occultist by poring over documents in this very archive. I would love to have been able to go myself.

Now much of that history may be lost. When I think of my emotions, it is not so much sad as horrified. It reminds us how fragile our connexion to the past can be, and the importance of archivists, librarians, and historians in maintaining that connexion. I so hope that more can be saved, and that they can rig up some device to protect against rain as they try to unearth these precious holdings.

Although I'd seen the story in a variety of media, this particular link is courtesy of Steven from Library Stuff.

Photos can be accessed through the article, but these were particularly riveting, I thought:

Building as it was before collapse - After the collapse: View 1 - View 2 - View 3

You can also see an aerial view in this video.

The building is gone, leaving only huge chunks of concrete. Let us hope that treasures may be found under the rubble, but it will be an arduous task that will be painstakingly slow compared to clearing most rubble, due to the great care necessary to preserve the documents. I wish them well.