Famed Viking ship museum to be torn down due to rising sea

COPENHAGEN – Denmark’s famed Viking ship museum, damaged by the rising sea level in 2013, will be torn down.

Culture Minister Mette Bock says Denmark’s national museum for prehistoric and medieval ships, seafaring and boatbuilding in Roskilde, 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Copenhagen, can be removed from the list of building to be preserved.

Bock said Thursday that when built in the 1960s, “no one could have predicted the rising water and the challenges it caused for the museum building.”

A 2013 winter storm caused damages worth 11.5 million kroner ($1.8 million) to the building overlooking the Roskilde fjord, though none of the ships were damaged. The museum itself had asked for it to be torn down because repairs were impossible.

No information about the fate of the ships was available.