`We will rebuild Notre Dame'
PARIS: Firefighters declared success yesterday in their more than 12hour battle to extinguish the flames that engulfed Paris’ iconic Notre Dame cathedral.
What remained was a blackened shell of the monument immortalised in Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a building that had survived almost 900 years of tumultuous French history.
The two 69m bell towers remained intact and swarmed with building specialists and architects at dawn, looking tiny from the ground as they conducted analysis.
The cathedral’s spire and roof were gone, however.
Paris firefighters spokesman Gabriel Plus said ‘‘the entire fire is out’’ and that emergency services were ‘‘surveying the movement of the structures and extinguishing smoldering residues.’’
‘‘The task overnight was to bring the fire under control so it doesn’t restart,’’ said Junior Interior Minister Laurent Nunez in front of the cathedral.
‘‘The task is — now the risk of fire has been put aside — about the building, how the structure will resist,’’ he continued.
Officials consider the fire an accident, possibly as a result of restoration work taking place at the global architectural treasure, but that news has done nothing to ease the national mourning.
French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to rebuild the cathedral he called ‘‘a part of us’’ and appealed for help to do so.
‘‘We will rebuild Notre Dame,’’ he said.
As the country woke up in collective sadness, its richest businessman, Bernard Arnault, and his luxury goods group LVMH answered this call with a pledge of ¤200 million ($NZ334.8 million).
A communique said the Arnault family were ‘‘in solidarity with this national tragedy, and join in the reconstruction of this extraordinary cathedral, a symbol of France, of its heritage and togetherness.’’
Businessman FrancoisHenri Pinault and his billionaire father Francois Pinault also said they were immediately giving ¤100 million from their company, Artemis, to help finance repairs.
A statement from FrancoisHenri Pinault said ‘‘this tragedy impacts all French people’’ and ‘‘everyone wants to restore life as quickly as possible to this jewel of our heritage.’’
‘‘It’s a symbol of our country that risked being destroyed,’’ Culture Minister Franck Riester told CNews television.
Firefighters who entered the burning cathedral saved many of its treasures, Riester said, although some paintings remained inside and risked smoke and water damage.
The fire tore through the cathedral’s timbered roofing, where workmen were carrying out extensive renovations to collapsed balustrades and crumbling gargoyles and the spire’s wooden frame.
Hundreds of stunned onlookers lined the banks of the Seine river as the fire raged, reciting prayers and singing liturgical music in harmonies late into the night as they stood vigil.
France’s Fondation du Patrimoine, a charity which works to protect French heritage, is launching an international appeal to raise funds for the rebuilding that is likely to cost hundreds of millions of euros.
Campaigns were launched in the United States as wellwishers around the world pledged contributions via social media.
Earlier, tourists and Parisians looked on aghast from the streets below as the blaze collapsed the cathedral’s spire and spread to one of its landmark rectangular towers, but Paris fire chief JeanClaude Gallet said the church’s structure had been saved after firefighters managed to stop the fire spreading to the northern belfry.
As the spire fell, the sky lit up orange and flames shot out of the roof behind the nave of the cathedral, among the most visited landmarks in the world.
Remarkably, only one of the about 400 firefighters who battled the blaze was injured, officials said.
The fire came less than a week before Easter amid Holy Week commemorations.
Paris Archbishop Michel Aupetit invited priests across France to ring church bells in a call for prayers.
Built in the 12th and 13th centuries, Notre Dame is the most famous of the Gothic cathedrals of the Middle Ages as well as one of the most beloved structures in the world.
Situated on the Ile de la Cite, in the Seine river, its architecture is famous for its gargoyles and flying buttresses.
Among the most celebrated artworks inside are its three stainedglass rose windows, placed high up on the west, north and south faces of the cathedral.
Notre Dame’s top administrative cleric, Monsignor Patrick Chauvet, said a centuriesold crown of thorns made from reeds and gold and the tunic believed to have been worn by Saint Louis, a 13thcentury king of France, had been saved from the fire.
Copper statues representing the Twelve Apostles and four evangelists had been removed by crane last week as part of the renovation work.
Reactions from around the world came swiftly. The Vatican, in a statement, expressed shock and sadness for the ‘‘terrible fire that has devastated the Cathedral of Notre Dame, symbol of Christianity in France and in the world.’’ — AP