In pictures: Rio museum destroyed in huge blaze

Brazil's national museum, a 200-year-old building that contained 20 million items in its collection, went up in flames on Sunday night.

The fire started on Sunday evening, after the building - a 19th-Century former royal palace - had closed for the day.

The fire lit up the night sky, and sent plumes of smoke over the city of Rio de Janeiro.

One of the largest anthropology and natural history collections in the Americas was almost totally destroyed in the blaze.

The museum housed thousands of items related to the history of Brazil, as well as artefacts from Egypt, Greco-Roman art and some of the first fossils found in Brazil.

No injuries have been reported.

Aerial photos the next morning revealed the scale of the damage to the historic building.

It is not known what caused the blaze, but officials have blamed lack of funding for the devastation.

The destruction of the museum has been described as a "cultural tragedy".

Demonstrators later gathered in front of the museum to voice their anger at the authorities.

Pictures from Getty Images, AFP, Reuters and EPA