Historic Spanish mosque-cathedral reopens after blaze
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Firefighters working to extinguish a fire which broke out in the historic mosque-turned-cathedral in the southern Spanish city of Cordoba on Aug 8.
PHOTO: AFP
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MADRID - A historic mosque-turned-cathedral in Cordoba in southern Spain reopened on Aug 9, a day after a blaze that was quickly contained by firefighters, a spokesman for the site said.
Considered a jewel of Islamic architecture, the site opened at 10am and will close at 7pm – its regular hours – with only the area where the fire broke out cordoned off to the public, he told AFP.
The blaze broke out on Aug 8 at about 9pm (3am on Aug 9, Singapore time), raising fears for the early medieval architectural gem and evoking memories of the 2019 fire that ravaged Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.
Widely shared videos had shown flames and smoke billowing from inside the tourist attraction visited by two million people a year.
Fire crews worked at the scene throughout the night to monitor the area after extinguishing the flames shortly after midnight.
Several fire engines and police lined a street near the building on the morning of Aug 9 as tourists lined up to get inside, images broadcast on Spanish media showed. The fire-damaged section, known as the Almanzor nave, was cordoned off with waist-high barriers.
Cordoba’s mayor Jose Maria Bellido told Spanish media late on Aug 8 that the monument had been “saved”.
“Luckily, the rapid and magnificent intervention of the Cordoba firefighters averted a catastrophe. The fire is now out, and tonight firefighters and local police teams will remain on site to avoid any risk,” he added on X.
The head of the regional government of Andalusia wrote on X that he was “deeply shaken” by the fire, expressing hope that it caused “as little damage as possible”.
ABC and other newspapers reported that a mechanical sweeping machine had caught fire at the heritage site.
The site was built as a mosque – on the site of an earlier church – between the eighth and 10th centuries by the southern city’s then Muslim ruler, Abd ar-Rahman, an emir of the Umayyad dynasty.
After Christians reconquered Spain in the 13th century under King Ferdinand III of Castile, it was converted into a cathedral and architectural alterations were made over the following centuries.
The building was designated a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1984 due to its architectural and cultural significance. This is the third recorded fire in the nearly 1,000-year history of the building, following incidents in 1910 and 2001. AFP
