Thirty tapes with back ups from Mathematical Sciences were taken undamaged from the safe last week: relief all over at the computer section and employees of the affected department.
The safe was opened by the company ISS Damage Services in Almelo by an expert from De Raat from Zoetermeer, the supplier of the barely two-year-old safe. Head of the Mathematics computer section, R. Strijbos, was present when this happened. According to him it was easy opening the safe. 'The metal had started to bulge slightly on the outside, there was therefore some fear that the inside would have been affected too. Fortunately the opposite turned out to be true.'
The fire only affected the outer fire-resistant layer of the safe. The other four layers, or inhibitors, miraculously were not. That is probably why the heart of the safe did not have to withstand the maximum temperature of 1,000 degrees celsius.
The tapes will be tested and read in as soon as possible. They contain the scientific work of many Mathematics employees, probably stored until approximately ten days before the fire of Wednesday 20 November. Strijbos: 'The tapes look good, we therefore expect that no information has been lost.'
