PARIS: Wearing hard hats and protective suits, the choir of Notre Dame Cathedral sang inside the medieval Paris landmark for the first time since last year’s devastating fire for a special Christmas Eve concert.
Accompanied by an acclaimed violinist, a rented organ and a soprano soloist, 20 singers performed beneath the cathedral’s stained-glass windows amid the darkened church, which is transitioning from being a precarious hazardous clean-up operation to becoming a massive reconstruction site.
The singers stood socially distanced to be able to take off their masks — which is required indoors in France to stem the spread of the virus — and sing.
The concert was recorded Saturday and will be broadcast Thursday night. The public was not allowed and isn’t expected to see the insides of Notre Dame until at least 2024.
The diocese called it a “highly symbolic concert ... marked with emotion and hope,” and a celebration of a “musical heritage that dates to the Middle Ages.”
The archbishop of Paris, Monsignor Michel Aupetit, will hold Thursday’s Christmas Eve services in Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois Church across from the Louvre Museum instead of Notre Dame.
The Notre Dame choir used to give 60 concerts a year inside the cathedral but has been itinerant ever since, moving among other Paris churches.
The April 2019 fire consumed the cathedral’s lead roof and destroyed its spire, and only earlier this month did workers finally stabilize the site enough to begin rebuilding.
Christmas Eve concert held in Paris’ fire-wrecked Notre Dame
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Christmas Eve concert held in Paris’ fire-wrecked Notre Dame
Flash floods triggered by heavy rains in Afghanistan kill at least 17 people
- Afghanistan, like neighboring Pakistan and India, is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, particularly flash floods following seasonal rains
- Decades of conflict, poor infrastructure, deforestation, and the intensifying effects of climate change have amplified the impact of such disasters
KABUL: The season’s first heavy rains and snowfall ended a prolonged dry spell but triggered flash floods in several areas of Afghanistan, killing at least 17 people and injuring 11 others, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s national disaster management authority said Thursday.
The dead included five members of a family in a property where the roof collapsed on Thursday in Kabkan, a district in Herat province, according to Mohammad Yousaf Saeedi, spokesman for the Herat governor. Two of the victims were children.
Most of the casualties have occurred since Monday in districts hit by flooding, and the severe weather also disrupted daily life across central, northern, southern, and western regions, according to Mohammad Yousaf Hammad, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s National Disaster Management Authority.
Hammad said the floods also damaged infrastructure in the affected districts, killed livestock, and affected 1,800 families, worsening conditions in already vulnerable urban and rural communities.
Hammad said the agency has sent assessment teams to the worst-affected areas, with surveys ongoing to determine further needs.
Afghanistan, like neighboring Pakistan and India, is highly vulnerable to extreme weather events, particularly flash floods following seasonal rains.
Decades of conflict, poor infrastructure, deforestation, and the intensifying effects of climate change have amplified the impact of such disasters, especially in remote areas where many homes are made of mud and offer limited protection against sudden deluges.
The United Nations and other aid agencies this week warned that Afghanistan is expected to remain one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises in 2026. The UN and its humanitarian partners launched a $1.7 billion appeal on Tuesday to assist nearly 18 million people in urgent need in the country.
