Works of Charles Darwin destroyed

A fire at a 100-year-old Glasgow University building caused £8 million ($NZ27.92 million) in damage and destroyed rare scientific volumes by Charles Darwin.

A university spokesman said demolition and rebuilding of part of the three-storey building would take two years.

Firefighters took three hours to extinguish the blaze at the university's Bower building on Wednesday. No one was injured, but scientific equipment and a collection of 19th-century botany volumes were destroyed. Among the lost manuscripts, valued at more than £2 million ($NZ6.98 million), were works by Darwin.

Strathclyde police were investigating the cause of the fire.