Floods in south-west France have forced the closure of the Catholic pilgrimage site in Lourdes and the evacuation of visitors from nearby hotels.
Water
swirled up to five-feet deep in the grotto where nearly six million
believers from around the world, many gravely ill, come every year
seeking miracles and healing.
It has been a major pilgrimage site since a
French girl’s vision of the Virgin Mary there in 1858.
Mayor
Jean-Pierre Artiganave that the pilgrimage complex in the foothills of
the Pyrenees will not reopen until safety can be assured.
Diocese
spokesman Mathias Terrier said that was not likely before the end of the week.
Rescue services evacuated hundreds of people
from nearby hotels. They were particularly concerned with bringing weak
and sick pilgrims to safety.
A group of 3,000 children due for a day
visit had their trip cancelled.
Heavy rains
around the region inundated town centres and swelled the Gave de Pau
river, forcing road closures.
“We need more reinforcements in the area
to face these floods, which are really exceptional,” interior minister Manuel Valls
said while visiting Lourdes. He said days of sustained rains and sudden
snowmelt made the flooding worse, and left some villages isolated.
The
website for the pilgrimage complex, which includes several buildings
and a sanctuary nestled beneath a rocky hillside, carried a dramatic
rundown of the rising waters.
As the waters began
to rise, masses were gradually cancelled.
One by one, entrances to the
sanctuary were cordoned off.
The live video feed of the grotto went
down.
Then the electricity was cut off, and then phones.
“A vision of
the apocalypse in the Sainte Bernadette Church,
where the big movable partition is threatening to fall. The water has
risen above the stairs of the choir,” read one announcement.