Paris (TAN): A photograph taken by a tourist showing a possible father-daughter duo playing in front of the Notre-Dame cathedral around an hour before a devastating fire broke out at the 850-year-old Gothic structure has gone viral with people attempting to find the two.
“I took this photo as we were leaving #NotreDame about an hour before it caught on fire. I almost went up to the dad and asked if he wanted it. Now I wish I had,” wrote Brooke Windsor along with the picture she posted on Twitter.
“Twitter if you have any magic, help him find this,” she added.
And Twitter has been trying. At the time of this report being filed, the tweet along with the picture had been retweeted around 200,000 times.
Windsor later posted that she did not know if it the duo was father and daughter. She said: “It’s simply the dynamic I observed from them while debating on interrupting this moment. It may be an uncle, brother, friend, who knows until we find them. It was taken at 5:57 local time.”
The fire broke out at Notre-Dame around 7 pm (1900 hours local time) on Monday.
Windsor, who was travelling with friends, said they noticed the smoke when they were at the Louvre.
“No, I have not been able to find the folks in the photo but I am hopeful. Twitter sure knows how to step up,” Windsor’s last tweet said on Tuesday.
Twitter user Michelle Bhasin wrote: “This is going to become THAT photo.”
Fire ravages 850-year-old cathedral that survived two world wars
The devastating fire at the Catholic cathedral, considered among the finest examples of French Gothic architecture, brought its spire crashing to the ground as onlookers watched aghast.
Hundreds of firefighters brought the flames under control after several hours of work.
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo thanked the police and municipal agents and said many important works of the Notre-Dame, a Unesco World Heritage structure, has been saved because of their efforts.
“The Crown of thorns, the tunic of Saint Louis and several other major works are now in a safe place,” she said.
French President Macron vows to rebuild Notre-Dame
French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to rebuild the 850-year-old Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris that was ravaged by a massive fire on Monday evening.
The fire brought down the world-famous cathedral’s spire crashing to the ground as onlookers watched aghast.
“This Notre-Dame Cathedral, we will rebuild it. All together. This is part of our French destiny. I am committed to this: from tomorrow a national subscription will be launched, and far beyond our borders,” President Macron, who visited the site, tweeted in French.
French billionaire François-Henri Pinault, who is actor Salma Hayek’s husband, has promised to donate EUR 100 million for the restoration of Notre Dame.
UNESCO has offered to send a team of experts to assess the damage at Notre-Dame.
