A large overnight fire tore through the Lingxiao Hall at Taipei's Zhinan Temple, badly damaging one of the city's best-known religious landmarks, though no one was hurt.

• The fire broke out Monday night at the temple in Taipei's Wenshan District and was put out by midnight.
• The Lingxiao Hall was left blackened, with a strong burnt smell still hanging over the site the next morning.
• The hall is a wooden building of three floors above ground and two below, so the lower floors burned fast and it was fully alight when crews arrived.
• Dozens of fire trucks and more than a hundred firefighters were sent in; nobody was trapped.
• Taipei mayor Chiang Wan-an dropped his city government meeting to visit the site, and the deputy mayor promised help with rebuilding.

Outlook: Attention now turns to what caused the fire and how quickly the damaged hall can be restored.