Heavy rain caused the almost total collapse of an already damaged buttress, threatening the integrity of the long-abandoned 17th century synagogue in Pidhaitsi, Ukraine, which already was in ruinous condition.
The news site te.24minut.ua raised the alarm in an article by Olga Turchak published May 11.
It said members of the Ternopil region office of the Ukrainian Emergency Service were called to the scene, and it quoted the Service’s Serhiy Danilin as saying that the collapse of “part of the corner support” had been triggered by “longterm rainfall.”
The article was accompanied by photos that showed that the upper part of the southeastern buttress — which had already partially collapsed more than 25 years ago — had fallen, meaning that the entire buttress no longer stands. The article said that in addition to endangering the building as a whole, the collapse had blocked the road.
It said that the local Department of Culture had sent an appeal to the Ministry of Culture.
The synagogue is believed to have been built in the mid-17th century.
It has long been abandoned and in perilous condition.
This photo from 1992 shows the buttress already partially collapsed.
Click to see the article on te.24minute.ua
Click to see documentation of the building from 1992, by Center for Jewish Art
Click to see documentation of the building from 2010, by Jewish Galicia & Bukovina
See a complete description of the building in the Center for Jewish Art database
READ MORE: Gothic Survival in Synagogue Architecture of Ruthenia,Podolia and Volhynia in the 17th- 18th Centuries, by Sergey R. Kravtsov