Floods caused by days of non-stop rain in southwest France forced the closing of most of the Catholic sanctuary of Lourdes on Saturday and the evacuation of more than 450 pilgrims, local authorities said.
Buses ferried guests from all the hotels in the lower town to a conference center and a sports complex as officials said the sites visited by millions annually would stay closed for several days.
Two campsites were also evacuated and several roads closed around Lourdes, where Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared to peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous in a grotto in 1858, as the river Gave de Pau burst its banks.
Photo: AFP
The water was about 1m deep in front of the grotto and 80cm in the Avenue du Paradis, where most of the hotels for pilgrims are located, after what officials said was the worst flooding in 25 years.
Only the massive basilica, built on higher ground, was still accessible.
“The space in front of the grotto is entirely covered with water, the altar is under water,” the custodian of the sanctuaries, Thierry Castillo, said. “There are torrents of mud.”
Castillo predicted major damage which would be costly to repair. He singled out the hydroelectric plant, which provides power to the sanctuaries, which was badly damaged by floating tree trunks.
The Gave de Pau was 3m above its usual level on Saturday morning and was still rising, as weather forecasters predicted that the rain that has been falling non-stop since Thursday would continue until yesterday.
A heavy downpour was forecast for Saturday evening and night.
“I’ve seen nothing like it in 40 years,” said hotel-owner Pierre Barrere as he watched the pilgrims being evacuated.
Catherine Brun from Grenoble in southeast France was told to leave at 8:30am. She said she had just had time to take her car from the garage before the water suddenly rose.
Rescuers evacuated her mother, who is frail, in a boat some hours later. The two women were taken to another hotel.
At a shelter for the evacuees, Kiki Klint from the Netherlands, who was accompanying a group of Dutch teenagers to the shrine, expressed her disappointment.
“I wanted to show the young people the statue of the Virgin, the processions and they won’t be able to see anything,” she said, adding that it was “terrible to see” the rising water which they had to walk through to get out of the hotel.
Lourdes attracted more than 6 million visitors last year. The Catholic church recognizes 68 miracles linked to it and many disabled or sick people go there to pray for a cure.
The sanctuaries are not expected to reopen before tomorrow or Wednesday.
GLORY FACADE: Residents are fighting the church’s plan to build a large flight of steps and a square that would entail destroying up to two blocks of homes Barcelona’s eternally unfinished Basilica de la Sagrada Familia has grown to become the world’s tallest church, but a conflict with residents threatens to delay the finish date for the monument designed more than 140 years ago. Swathed in scaffolding on a platform 54m above the ground, an enormous stone slab is being prepared to complete the cross of the central Jesus Christ tower. A huge yellow crane is to bring it up to the summit, which will stand at 172.5m and has snatched the record as the world’s tallest church from Germany’s Ulm Minster. The basilica’s peak will deliberately fall short of the
FRAYED: Strains between the US-European ties have ruptured allies’ trust in Washington, but with time, that could be rebuilt, the Michigan governor said China is providing crucial support for Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and could end the war with a phone call, US Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker said. “China could call [Russian President] Vladimir Putin and end this war tomorrow and cut off his dual-purpose technologies that they’re selling,” Whitaker said during a Friday panel at the Munich Security Conference. “China could stop buying Russian oil and gas.” “You know, this war is being completely enabled by China,” the US envoy added. Beijing and Moscow have forged an even tighter partnership since the start of the war, and Russia relies on China for critical parts
Two sitting Philippine senators have been identified as “coperpetrators” in former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s crimes against humanity trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC), documents released by prosecutors showed. Philippine senators Ronald Dela Rosa and Christopher Go are among eight current and former officials named in a document dated Feb. 13 and posted to the court’s Web site. ICC prosecutors have charged Duterte with three counts of crimes against humanity, alleging his involvement in at least 76 murders as part of his “war on drugs.” “Duterte and his coperpetrators shared a common plan or agreement to ‘neutralize’ alleged criminals in the Philippines
Venezuelan Nobel peace laureate Maria Corina Machado yesterday said that armed men “kidnapped” a close ally shortly after his release by authorities, following former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro’s capture. The country’s Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed later yesterday that former National Assembly vice president Juan Pablo Guanipa, 61, was again taken into custody and was to be put under house arrest, arguing that he violated the conditions of his release. Guanipa would be placed under house arrest “in order to safeguard the criminal process,” the office said in a statement. The conditions of Guanipa’s release have yet to be made public. Machado claimed that
RSS