‘Our personal Notre-Dame second,’ minister says of collapsed spire at 400-year-old inventory change constructing
COPENHAGEN – A hearth ripped by Copenhagen’s Outdated Inventory Trade, one of many Danish capital’s best-known buildings, on Tuesday, engulfing its spire which collapsed in a scene harking back to the 2019 blaze at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Emergency providers, workers from the Danish Chamber of Commerce, together with its CEO Brian Mikkelsen, and even passers-by have been seen carrying giant work away from the constructing in a race to avoid wasting historic artefacts from the flames.
“We’re saving all the things we presumably can,” Copenhagen hearth division chief Jakob Vedsted Andersen instructed reporters.
Denmark’s Nationwide Museum despatched 25 workers to the scene to assist evacuate cultural artefacts and work, it mentioned on X.
The historic constructing, whose spire was formed because the tails of 4 dragons intertwined, had been below renovation and clad in scaffolding when the fireplace broke out.
Components of the roof had collapsed and the fireplace unfold to a number of flooring of the constructing, Vedsted instructed reporters.
“It’s at all times unhappy to place out fires in outdated buildings,” he mentioned.
Some 120 individuals have been working to comprise the fireplace however solely round 40% of it was below management, Vedsted mentioned, including that the firefighting operation would go on for not less than 24 hours.
There have been no quick stories of accidents, police mentioned.
“Horrible photos from the Bourse. So unhappy. An iconic constructing meaning so much to all of us … Our personal Notre-Dame second,” Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen wrote on X.
Thick gray smoke rose above town and sirens could possibly be heard as emergency providers have been referred to as to the location. Round 90 conscripts from the Royal Life Guards, a military unit, have been serving to cordon off and safe valuables, the army mentioned.
“I’m very, very unhappy. … At first I couldn’t consider it was true,” schoolteacher Elisabeth Handberg, 80, mentioned, including that she and her pupils had watched the smoke from their classroom window.
“My fifth graders mentioned ‘it’s been there for the reason that time of King Christian IV after which it burns’. They have been additionally very touched by it,” she added. “I’m hoping it is going to be rebuilt, it may’t be some other means.”
The Dutch Renaissance-style constructing not homes the Danish inventory change, however serves as headquarters for the Danish Chamber of Commerce.
Dragons on the roof
The constructing was initially constructed to accommodate stalls the place items resembling tea and spices have been traded.
“It was imagined that a variety of gold can be generated for Denmark and that’s why they put dragons above it as a result of they’re identified to protect gold,” senior researcher on the Nationwide Museum of Denmark, Ulla Kjaer, instructed Reuters.
The spire additionally had three crowns on the high, symbolizing the good kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, she added.
“This spire is totally iconic and there’s no different prefer it on the planet,” Kjaer mentioned.
The presence of dragons on the roof had been seen as symbolically defending the change from enemies, in addition to from hearth, the Chamber mentioned on its web site.
“An vital a part of our architectural heritage was and nonetheless is in flames,” King Frederik wrote in a submit on Instagram. “For generations, the attribute dragon spire has helped to characterise Copenhagen because the ‘metropolis of towers’.”
The scaffolding across the constructing made it more durable for the emergency providers to get by to the flames, whereas the copper roof was trapping the warmth.
The close by finance ministry was evacuated because of the fireplace, the police mentioned.
It was not instantly clear what brought on the blaze.
Copenhagen police requested individuals to keep away from driving within the internal a part of town.
The Danish Chamber of Commerce, which has owned the constructing since 1857, has labored on restoring it to the type of King Christian IV, who had the constructing constructed within the seventeenth century.
“400 years of Danish cultural heritage in flames,” Tradition Minister Jakob Engel-Schmidt wrote on X. “The constructing is stuffed with artwork that tells so much about our historical past, about who we’re as a individuals,” he instructed reporters.
