Eiffel Tower evacuated after fire at famous building
The Eiffel Tower was evacuated this morning after a fire started in the lift.
Firefighters were ‘unable to access the flames’ inside the lift shaft between the ground and first floors, Frontières reported at 10.35am.
A police source told Boulevard Voltaire just after midday local time that the fire had been extinguished.
Some 1,200 people were evacuated. The cause of the fire was a cable overheating, an insider claimed.
One witness said on X: ‘We were asked to evacuate immediately.’
Another added: ‘For security reasons, the Eiffel Tower is closed.’
The Eiffel Tower in Champ de Mars sees up to 25,000 visitors a day.
The reported fire happened only hours after a separate blaze erupted at 1 rue de la Pépinière, opposite the Cour de Rome, nearly two miles northeast of the Eiffel Tower.
Footage showed the flames eating away at the seventh floor of the residential and office building at around 9am.
Fire officials said the blaze near the busy St Lazare train station was caused by an accident at a construction site.
‘It smells like something is burning everywhere in the neighbourhood, and on people’s clothes,’ one witness told LeParisien.
Notre-Dame, meanwhile, reopened to the public earlier this month some five years after flames devoured the church’s centuries-old lead roof.
Parisians watched in horror in April 2019 as the cathedral’s 19th-century wooden spire tumbled down, fire kicked through vaults and charred pews.
Restoration work has been underway on the 860-year-old building ever since.
The Paris Fire Brigade declined to comment. The Eiffel Tower customer service team have been approached for comment.
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