A fire tore through the main hall of Taipei's Zhinan Temple on Sunday night, burning more than a dozen statues of gods and leaving one of the city's best-known temples badly scarred.

• The blaze hit the Lingxiao Hall in Taipei's Wenshan District and gutted large parts of the interior before firefighters put it out.
• More than ten statues were destroyed, including wooden and bronze figures in the ground-floor shrine.
• The stone lion at the entrance cracked from the heat, and firefighters kept spraying water the next day to stop the fire restarting.
• Temple leaders plan to repair the statues that can be saved and recast the ones that cannot, followed by a ceremony to return them to their places.
• Only the damaged hall is closed off; worshippers can still visit the rest of the temple.

Outlook: The cost and timeline for rebuilding are still unclear, and the temple is asking the public for help paying for repairs that need traditional craftsmen.