Historic Spanish mosque-cathedral reopens after blaze

MADRID: A fire at a historic mosque-turned-cathedral in Cordoba in southern Spain caused only “very localised damage,” the city’s mayor said on Saturday as the site reopened to the public.

The spectacular blaze broke out on Friday at about 9pm (1900 GMT), 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 major tourist attraction, which is considered a jewel of Islamic architecture and is visited by two million people per year.

“There is some damage, significant damage, but it is very, very localised,” the mayor of Cordoba, Jose Maria Bellido, told reporters outside the site which opened to the public as usual in the morning.

Most of the damage is concentrated in a chapel where the fire broke out, whose roof “completely collapsed” due to the flames and the weight of the water used to put them out, he added in an interview with Spanish public television.

Also read: What to expect when Paris’ Notre-Dame Cathedral reopens on Saturday

The mayor estimated that the fire damaged approximately 50 to 60 square metres of the building, which has a total interior area of around 3,000 square metres.

“Fortunately yesterday a catastrophe was avoided that could have meant losing the entire mosque-cathedral,” he said.

The fire-damaged section, known as the Almanzor nave, was cordoned off with waist-high barriers.

Several fire engines and police lined a street near the building on Saturday morning as tourists lined up to get inside, images broadcast on Spanish media showed.

The fire-damaged section, known as the Almanzor nave, remained cordoned off.

A total of 35 firefighters worked throughout the night to monitor the area and cool the walls after the blaze was extinguished, the head of Cordoba’s firefighting service, Daniel Munoz, said.

Forensics police were at the scene on Saturday to try to determine the cause of the fire, he added.

ABC and other newspapers reported that a mechanical sweeping machine had caught fire in the site.

The site was built as a mosque — on the site of an earlier church — between the 8th 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 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.