A recent strike narrowly missed slave trade archives in Barbados, and experts warn more and worse is to come as global heating intensifies storms

When the Barbados National Archives, home to one of the world’s most significant collections of documents from the transatlantic slave trade, reported in June that it had been struck by lightning, it received widespread sympathy and offers of support locally and internationally.

A section of the 60-year-old building, Block D, located on the grounds of the “Lazaretto” (the island’s former colony for people with leprosy), caught fire, and sustained serious damage. Official documents including hospital and school records were lost. “It was not just paper that was in the building, but documents that have stories about our families and ancestors,” says the chief archivist, Ingrid Thompson.