An exclusive look inside the recovery efforts to save Notre Dame via TIME
Nearly three months after a fire gutted Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, the building’s chief architect has warned that there is still a risk that the historic building’s ceiling arches might yet collapse, causing severe structural damage.
Those assessing Notre-Dame’s damage are working to a tight deadline: President Emmanuel Macron has declared that the building should be rebuilt within five years. But Villeneuve says there remain some deeply worrying unknowns about what state Notre-Dame is in, especially as the building’s interior is now open to the elements. “We do not know if there are fissures or fractures,” he says.
It was up on roof level that a spark from an unknown source ignited a fire around sunset on April 15, whipping within minutes through the roof. The 300-foot wooden spire, mounted about 150 years ago, tilted in the blaze and then crashed in pieces through the roof, bringing down with it the vaulted oak ceiling that Medieval craftsman built by hand in the 13th century.
For now, it is deemed too risky for humans to work inside the cathedral, since any manipulation or heavy pressure could cause further damage. That is why the architects and engineers have been unable as yet to examine the damage in fine detail. But Villeneuve says sensors installed the day after the fire have so far failed to detect any structural movement that might signal an imminent collapse.
Within the interior of the cathedral, remote-controlled earth-moving vehicles venture into the center of the nave, where the spire fell, to pick out pieces one by one from a large pile of charred debris. But it will take weeks more before the pile is removed.
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