Normandy: The spire of the gothic cathedral in in the Normandy city of Rouen caught fire, during renovation works on Thursday. This evoked memories of the 2019 Notre Dame blaze in Paris.
Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol posted on the social media platform X, “The beginning of a fire is underway on the spire of the cathedral of Rouen. The origin is unknown at this stage. All public resources are mobilised.”
The regional administration posted online that the cathedral was evacuated and a security perimeter is in place.
Initial visuals showed a dark plume of smoke rising from the spire and people in the streets below looking up in horror. In later images, smoke could still be seen through a gap in the white cover encircling the scaffolding around the spire but it was no longer rising in a dark column.
The cathedral in Rouen in Normandy is widely known from a series of paintings by impressionist Claude Monet.
The cathedral in Paris, a major landmark, is scheduled to reopen in December after an unprecedented reconstruction effort. The cause of that fire was deemed an accident.
This is a developing story
BREAKING: Massive Fire Breaks out in 12-th Century French Cathedral in Normandy’s Rouen world-news World News | Latest International Global World News | Todays Breaking News Headlines
