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Restored Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris unveiled after 2019 fire

Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris has offered the world a peek of its restored interior, five years after it was ravaged by a fire.
French President Emmanuel Macron inspected the renovation work on Friday, and live images of the landmark’s stained-glass windows, creamy stonework, timber-framed roof and soaring ceilings were broadcast live on television a week before its official reopening on December 7.
After the 2019 fire, which reduced much of the 12th-century Gothic masterpiece to charred debris and toppled the spire, Macron set the ambitious goal to rebuild it within five years and make it “even more beautiful” than before.
The ensuing 700-million-euro ($739m) restoration project was funded by donations from 150 countries and carried out by about 2,000 people participating in the painstaking work, including architects, scaffolders, roofers, bell makers, masons and organ builders.
The 19th-century Gothic spire has since been resurrected with an exact copy of the original.
Notre-Dame, which welcomed 12 million visitors in 2017, expects to receive an even higher figure of “14 to 15 million” after the reopening, according to church authorities.
French ministers had floated the idea of charging tourists an entrance fee to the site, but the Catholic Church said it was important to maintain the principle of free admission.
Unseen to visitors is a discreet system of pipes ready to release millions of water droplets in case of any future fires.

World leaders are expected to join next week’s reopening, but the guest list has yet to be revealed.
“Even more beautiful than before, in the renewed radiance of the blonde stones and the colour of the chapels,” Macron said in a statement.
The “building site of the century” was a “challenge that many considered insane”, the president said of one of the French capital’s most visited and beloved monuments.
To the surprise of many, Pope Francis announced in September that he would not be attending the reopening.
In recent years, the French Catholic church has been rocked by sexual abuse allegations against clerics, including the monk known as Abbe Pierre, a household name for his aid to the destitute.
“We are very eager to welcome the whole world under the roof of our cathedral,” Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich said in a message on the cathedral’s website, expressing the church’s gratitude to all those who helped save it.
“On the night of April 15, hundreds of thousands of people committed themselves to what then seemed an impossible bet: to restore the cathedral and give it back its splendour within the unprecedented deadline of five years.”
More than five years on, the investigation into what caused the fire is ongoing with initial findings backing an accidental cause such as a short circuit, a welder’s torch or a cigarette.

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IPL 2025: Prabhsimran and Iyer see Lucknow Super Giants off with ease

Punjab Kings (PBKS) bossed both the powerplays en route to their second successive win in IPL 2025. After opting to bowl on a fairly two-paced red-soil pitch, they left Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at 39 for 3 in six overs. Abdul Samad and Ayush Badoni helped LSG overcome that poor start and post 171 for 7, which was a par score according to Nicholas Pooran the holder of the Orange cap.
Pooran’s assessment, however, might have changed quickly after Prabhsimran Singh clattered a 23-ball half-century in the chase. Prabhsimran claimed 45 of the 62 runs PBKS had scored in the powerplay. There would be no way back for LSG, who suffered their second defeat in three games. Shreyas Iyer completed PBKS’ demolition job with an unbeaten 52 off 30 balls.
The first ball that Arshdeep Singh bowled to Mitchell Marsh stopped on him, seamed away from a leg-stump line, and had him skying a catch to Marco Jansen at short third. After having hit fifties in his first two innings this season, Marsh departed for a golden duck.
It was Lockie Ferguson who shared new-ball duties with Arshdeep, ahead of Jansen. Ferguson usually operates with the older ball for New Zealand and various franchises, but PBKS inverted his role on Tuesday to take advantage of a match-up with Pooran. Before this fixture, and across all T20s, Ferguson had snared Pooran four times in 17 balls at a strike rate of 7.05.
However, Ferguson ended up bowling just three balls to Pooran on the day. After being picked away for three fours by Aiden Markram, Ferguson bowled him via an inside edge for 28 off 18 balls.
With two left-handers in the form of Pooran and Risbah Pant in the middle, PBKS matched Glenn Maxwell’s offspin up with them. Maxwell removed Pant for the third time in four innings in the IPL. The IPL’s most expensive signing at INR 27 crore, Pant has managed just 17 runs in three innings at a strike rate of 65.38.
Despite wickets falling at the other end, Pooran remained positive, hitting Maxwell for back-to-back fours in the seventh over. A cat-and-mouse game then ensued between Pooran and Yuzvendra Chahal. The wristspinner’s plan was to hide the ball away from the swinging arc of Pooran with wrong’uns. In his first over, Pooran cracked his wrong ‘uns away for a brace of fours, but in his next Chahal had Pooran holing out to wide long-off for 44 off 30 balls with a loopier wrong ‘un.
When Jansen had his South African compatriot David Miller caught behind for 19 off 16 balls, LSG slipped further to 119 for 5 in the 16th over. Badoni and Samad then briefly changed the mood and tempo of the game with a 47-run partnership off only 21 balls. Samad had launched his first ball, from Jansen, for six after stepping out and then left jaws on the floor when he reverse-scooped Arshdeep over the keeper in the 18th over, which cost PBKS 20 runs. Arshdeep had both batters holing out in the final over, though, to keep PBKS below 180.
Prabhsimran relishes pace on the ball and it was no different on Tuesday. Unlike the first innings, the ball skidded onto the bat in the second, with Prabhsimran ramping Shardul Thakur and Avesh Khan for six and four respectively in the first two overs.
Pant responded by throwing mystery spinner Digyesh Rathi at Prabhsimran and Priyansh Arya. Rathi created a chance with his second ball, but Marsh fluffed an overhead catch at slip. The drop, though, cost LSG just one run as Rathi had Arya caught by Thakur at mid-on for 8.
Prabhsimran took down Ravi Bishnoi in the last over of the powerplay. He lined up his wrong ‘uns and slog-swept him with the turn over mid-on and square leg. He then greeted dart-it-in left-arm fingerspinner M Siddarth, who was picked ahead of Prince Yadav as LSG’s Impact Player, with a switch-hit four. He brought up his fifty in more sedate fashion with a tucked single.
It felt like LSG needed something special to dismiss Prabhsimran. That something special was a tag-team catch near the boundary from Badoni and Bishnoi. He holed out for 69 off 34 balls.
PBKS required 62 off 59 balls, which was enough for Iyer to knock off a fifty of his own. He forged an unbroken 67-run stand off 37 balls with Impact Player Nehal Wadhera to finish the job with more than three overs to spare.
PBKS established themselves as the early pace-setters, alongside Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Delhi Capitals (DC), in IPL 2025 with two wins in two games.
Brief scores:
Punjab Kings 177 for 2 in 16.2 overs (Prabhsimran Singh 69, Shreyas Iyer 52, Nehal Wadhera 43*; Divesh Rathi 2-30) beat Lucknow Super Giants 171 for 7 in 20 overs (Aiden Markram 28, Nicholas Pooran 44, Ayush Badoni 41, David Miller 19, Abdul Samad 2; Arshdeep Singh 3 for 43, Lockie Furgeson 1-26, Glenn Maxwell 1-22, Marco Jansen 1-28, Yuzvendra Chahal 1-36) by eight wickets
[Cricinfo]
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Tourists and residents evacuated as volcano erupts in Iceland

Tourists and residents have been evacuated as a volcano erupted in south-west Iceland, threatening a town and popular attraction.
The volcano has been spewing lava and smoke in a fiery display of orange and red since the eruption began in the morning, creating a huge crack in the ground which has grown to 1.2km (0.75 miles) long.
Multiple earthquakes have occurred in the volcanic area throughout the day.
The volcano is close to the fishing town of Grindavik and the famous Blue Lagoon spa. A small number of people refused to evacuate the town, local media reported.
People were asked to “leave the danger zone,” the region’s police commissioner, Ulfar Ludviksson, told Iceland’s RUV broadcaster. But he said individuals staying in “seven or eight houses there… have decided to remain in the town.”
There were fears that the town was “in danger of having lava flows entering the inhabited area”, said Rikke Pedersen from the Nordic Volcanological Centre.
A hot water pipe has broken in the northern part of Grindavík, which confirms that considerable cracking has occurred within the town, the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO) said.
The protective barriers around Grindavik have also been breached, as new eruptive fissure opened a few hundred meters inside, the IMO reported. But volcanic activity eased off in the early afternoon on Tuesday.
Roads in and out of the town remain closed, but flights are currently not affected.
Most of the 4,000 residents of Grindavík left in a mass evacuation in 2023 because of the dangers of the volcanic activity. The volcano has erupted several times since.
The length of the magma that formed on Tuesday under the crater series stretched to about 11 km (6.8 miles) – the longest that has been measured since 11 November 2023, meteorologists said. The magma corridor extends about 3km further northeast than seen in previous eruptions.
Based on current wind direction, gas pollution from the eruption will travel northeast towards the capital area, the IMO added.
The eruption, which began around 09.45 local time (10:45 BST), occurred after several earthquakes hit the area known as the Sundhnúk crater range.
Multiple eruptions have occurred on the Reykjanes Peninsula since 2021. The last time the peninsula had a period of volcanic activity was 800 years ago – and the eruptions continued for decades.
Iceland has 33 active volcano systems and sits over what is known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the boundary between two of the largest tectonic plates on the planet.

[BBC]
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Mandalay was the ‘city of gold’ – now it reeks of death

Mandalay used to be known as the city of gold, dotted by glittering pagodas and Buddhist burial mounds, but the air in Myanmar’s former royal capital now reeks of dead bodies.
So many corpses have piled up since a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck last Friday close to Mandalay, that they have had to be “cremated in stacks”, one resident says.
The death toll from the quake and a series of aftershocks has climbed past 2,700, with 4,521 injured and hundreds still missing, Myanmar’s military chief said. Those figures are expected to rise.
Residents in the country’s second most populous city say they have spent sleepless nights wandering the streets in despair as food and water supplies dwindle.
The Mandalay resident who spoke of bodies being “cremated in stacks” lost her aunt in the quake.
“But her body was only pulled out of the rubble two days later, on 30 March,” said the 23-year-old student who wanted only to be known as J.
Poor infrastructure and a patchwork of civil conflicts are severely hampering the relief effort in Myanmar, where the military has a history of suppressing the scale of national disasters. The death toll is expected to keep rising as rescuers gain access to more collapsed buildings and cut-off districts.
J, who lives in Mandalay’s Mahaaungmyay district, has felt “dizzy from being deprived of sleep”, she said.
Many residents have been living out of tents – or nothing – along the streets, fearing that what’s left of their homes will not hold up against the aftershocks.
“I have seen many people, myself included, crouching over and crying out loud on the streets,” J said.
But survivors are still being found in the city. The fire service said it had rescued 403 people in Mandalay in the past four days, and recovered 259 bodies. The true number of casualties is thought to be much higher than the official version.
In a televised speech on Tuesday, military chief Min Aung Hlaing said the death toll may exceed 3,000, but the US Geological Survey said on Friday “a death toll over 10,000 is a strong possibility” based on the location and size of the quake.

Young children have been especially traumatised in the disaster.
A local pastor told the BBC his eight-year-old son had burst into tears all of a sudden several times in the last few days, after witnessing parts of his neighbourhood buried under rubble in an instant. “He was in the bedroom upstairs when the earthquake struck, and my wife was attending to his younger sister, so some debris had fallen onto him,” says Ruate, who only gave his first name. “Yesterday we saw bodies being brought out of collapsed buildings in our neighbourhood,” said Ruate, who lives in the Pyigyitagon area.
“It’s very sobering. Myanmar has been hit by so many disasters, some natural, some human made. Everyone’s just gotten so tired. We are feeling hopeless and helpless.”

A monk who lives near the Sky Villa condominium, one of the worst-hit buildings reduced from 12 to six storeys by the earthquake, told the BBC that while some people had been pulled out alive, “only dead bodies have been recovered” in the past 24 hours. “I hope this will be over soon. There are many bodies still inside, I think more than a hundred,” he said.
Crematoriums close to Mandalay have been overwhelmed, while authorities have been running out of body bags, among other supplies, including food and drinking water.
Around the city, the remains of crushed pagodas and golden spires line the streets. While Mandalay used to be a major centre for the production of gold leaf and a popular tourist destination, poverty in the city has soared in recent years, as with elsewhere in Myanmar (formerly called Burma).

Last week’s earthquake also affected Thailand and China, but itsnimpact has been especially devastating in Myanmar, which has been ravaged by a bloody civil war, a crippled economy and widespread disillusionment since the military took power in a coup in 2021.
On Tuesday, Myanmar held a minute of silence to remember victims, part of a week of national mourning. The junta called for flags to fly at half mast, media broadcasts to be halted and asked people to pay their respects.
Even before the quake, more than 3.5 million people had been displaced within the country.
Thousands more, nany of them young people, have fled abroad to avoid forced conscription – this means there are fewer people to help with relief work, and the subsequent rebuilding of the country.
Russia and China, which have helped prop up Myanmar’s military regime, are among countries that have sent aid and specialist support.
But relief has been slow, J said.
“The rescue teams have been working non-stop for four days and I think they are a little tired. They need some rest as well.
“But because the damage has been so extensive, we have limited resources here, it is simply hard for the relief workers to manage such massive destruction efficiently,” she said.

While the junta had said that all assistance is welcome, some humanitarian workers have reported challenges accessing quake-stricken areas.
Local media in Sagaing, the earthquake’s epicentre, have reported restrictions imposed by military authorities that require organisations to submit lists of volunteers and items that they want to bring into the area.
Several rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have urged the junta to allow aid workers immediate access to these areas.
“Myanmar’s military junta still invokes fear, even in the wake of a horrific natural disaster that killed and injured thousands,” said Bryony Lau, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Asia director.
“The junta needs to break from its appalling past practice and ensure that humanitarian aid quickly reaches those whose lives are at risk in earthquake-affected areas,” she said.
The junta has also drawn criticism for continuing to open fire on villages even as the country reels from the disaster.
[BBC]
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