(Adnkronos) – The cathedral of Notre-Dame will reopen to the public on December 7th, at the end of an impressive restoration work following the fire of April 15th, 2019. Below are some data relating to the work carried out in recent years to restore one of the symbols of the French capital to its splendor.
The monument will have been closed for 2,063 days, the time needed to erase the damage caused by the flames and water. We started from securing the construction site in the aftermath of the disaster to get to the last interventions before the reopening, passing through the two breaks in the works, due to lead pollution in August 2019 and for Covid in 2020. In all 5 years, 7 months and 22 days.
After the fire, Bfmtv recalls, a great surge of international generosity made it possible to collect a total of 846 million euros in donations to finance the reconstruction of the monument. Today, 98% of these promises have been kept or have resulted in legally binding commitments. This aid comes from 340,000 different donors from 150 countries. Most of the donations come from France, but 60 million euros come from foreign donors, more than half of whom are American. (continued)
It is believed that almost two thousand people have worked on the restoration of the cathedral, in Paris and elsewhere in France, since the day of the fire. They are almost 250 between companies and laboratories. To secure the construction site, scaffolding weighing a total of 1,200 tons was initially assembled inside the monument, until a real ‘iron cathedral’ was erected.
Although the Great Organ survived the fire, it emerged full of dust and with some parts deformed by the heat of the flames. For this reason, 8,000 pipes were carefully dismantled over five months, then cleaned and reassembled one by one starting in January 2023. The organ will be put back into operation for the first time after the fire on the occasion of the inauguration of the cathedral on 7 December.
The eight bells of the north bell tower of the cathedral, a true symbol of Notre-Dame, weighing a total of almost 17 tons, or 16,752 kilograms, have returned to the cathedral. The bells rang for the first time after the fire on November 8th. At the beginning of November, a new bell also arrived at Notre-Dame, the one presented at the Stade de France on the occasion of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. It will be rung during mass.
