A colossal fire swept through the famed Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on Monday, causing a spire to collapse and threatening to destroy the entire masterpiece and its precious artworks.The fire, which began in the early evening, sent flames and huge clouds of grey smoke billowing into the Paris sky as stunned Parisians and tourists watched on in sheer horror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some were in tears, others offered prayers from the \nbanks of the river Seine as the much-loved attraction at the heart of \nthe City of Light was consumed by the inferno.”This is really sad – the \nsaddest thing I’ve ever stood and watched in my life,” said British \ntourist Sam Ogden, a 50-year-old onlooker, who had come to visit the \ncathedral with her family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gasps and cries of “Oh my god” erupted\n around an hour after the fire first broke out when the top portion of \nthe church’s spire came crashing down.”It looked tiny to begin with, \nthen within an hour it all came down,” Ogden added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cause of \nthe blaze was not immediately confirmed but the cathedral had been \nundergoing intense restoration work which the fire service said could be\n to blame.Last week, dramatic footage had shown workers removing 16 \ncopper statues from the spire which was undergoing a revamp financed by \nthe state and private donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Everything is burning,” the \nspokesman for Notre Dame, Andre Finot, told. President Emmanuel Macron \ncancelled a major televised policy speech he was due to give on Monday \nevening over the “terrible fire ravaging Notre-Dame.” He headed to the \nscene in person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a tweet he expressed the “emotion of a whole \nnation” on seeing Notre-Dame ablaze. “Like all my compatriots I am sad \nto see a part of us burn this evening” he said, expressing solidarity \nwith “all Catholics and all French people.”
There was no immediate \nindication of any casualties in the blaze. “The Paris fire service is \ntrying to control the flames,” Paris’s Mayor Anne Hidalgo wrote on \nTwitter, asking residents to respect the security cordon thrown up \naround the siteA spokesperson for the cathedral said the fire, which \ncomes as French Catholics prepare to celebrate Easter, broke out at \naround 1650 GMT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US President Donald Trump in a tweet said: “So \nhorrible to watch the massive fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. \nPerhaps flying water tankers could be used to put it out. Must act \nquickly!”Hundreds of people gathered on the bridges of Paris downriver \nto witness the scene, many filming the images with their smartphones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\n cathedral was located at the centre of the French capital in the Middle\n Ages and its construction was completed in the mid-12th century after \nsome 200 years of work.During the French Revolution in the 18th century,\n the cathedral was vandalised amidst widespread anti-Catholic violence: \nits spire was dismantled, its treasures plundered and its large statues \nat the grand entrance doors destroyed.It would go on to feature as a \ncentral character in a Victor Hugo novel published in 1831, “The \nHunchback of Notre Dame” and shortly afterwards a restoration project \nlasting two decades got underway, led by architect Eugene \nViollet-le-Duc.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A colossal fire swept through the famed Notre-Dame Cathedral in central Paris on Monday, causing a spire to collapse and threatening to destroy the entire masterpiece and its precious artworks.The fire, which began in the early evening, sent flames and huge clouds of grey smoke billowing into the Paris sky as stunned Parisians and tourists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59262,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59263,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59261\/revisions\/59263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}