Stabilised Notre Dame cathedral on track for 2024 reopening

Paris

TWO and a half years after a fire ravaged the centuries-old Cathedral of Notre Dame in the heart of Paris, the building has been secured enough to start the rebuilding process, which is expected to be completed in 2024, said French authorities.

Stabilising the 850-year-old cathedral was a daunting task, as they had to dismantle scaffolding and clear the debris that lay heaped on the floor, among other tasks, said Jean-Louis Georgelin, a former army chief of staff whom President Emmanuel Macron placed in charge of the restoration.

"We are officially saying that the cathedral is now saved, that it's solid on its pillars, that its walls are solid," said Mr Georgelin, who leads the government's Notre Dame restoration task force, in an interview with French broadcaster BFM-TV.

The task force, called Rebuild Notre Dame, said in a statement on Saturday that the cathedral was on track to reopen in 2024, meeting Mr Macron's ambitious five-year deadline to open the Gothic landmark in the same year that Paris is set to host the Summer Olympics.

The rebuilding work is expected to begin in the next few months, the statement said.

Friends of Notre Dame de Paris, an organisation helping to restore the cathedral, is seeking donations to restore dozens of the cathedral's gargoyles, statues and paintings.

The world watched the events of April 15, 2019, as it would a slow-motion horror film. Flames consumed the cathedral attic before tearing through the roof and up the iconic spire, which toppled into the vaults below.

The cathedral, an irreplaceable symbol of French heritage, came dangerously close to collapsing, a New York Times investigation found.

Donations for the restoration poured in from around the world, including from some of France's wealthiest families.

In the days after the fire, individuals, companies and institutions donated or pledged 845 million euros (S$1.3 billion) to rebuild the damaged cathedral, a jewel of Gothic architecture.

The restoration set off a flurry of arguments over the cathedral's new design. Last year, Mr Macron dropped his unpopular idea of building a modern spire atop the cathedral.

Investigators have not yet said what caused the fire, but they have focused on two theories: a short-circuit near the spire; and negligence by workers carrying out renovations, a theory fuelled by the discovery of cigarette butts on the scaffolding.

Notre Dame's safety planners have been criticised for misjudging how quickly a flame could ignite and spread through the cathedral. The fallout from the fire was not limited to the cathedral.

Another Times investigation found that the billowing smoke emanating from the cathedral carried its own hidden danger: enormous quantities of lead that scattered throughout the streets and parks of Paris, said government reports.

The cathedral, where 13 million visitors used to crowd every year, remains closed to the public. NYTIMES