PARIS —
The area around the Eiffel Tower has been evacuated in the midst of a major fire, fire officials said on Sunday.
The blaze has started inside the Deutsche Post office building. The blaze on a bank and around the Eiffel Tower, which is on Paris’ Left Bank, also caused disruption to public transport.
Hours after the fire started just before 8 a.m., firefighters were still battling flames on the roof and some fire engines were still on the scene. The fire was visible from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Power cut in some parts of Paris before flames break out in Deutsche Post warehouse https://t.co/zhZVy6GU0j — Reuters Top News (@Reuters) December 30, 2018
#BREAKING: Firefighters are tackling a blaze at a warehouse in central Paris near the iconic tower on the Left Bank at Rue de Rivoli. pic.twitter.com/STrzXcqOoc — Reuters Top News (@Reuters) December 30, 2018
A spokesperson for Deutsche Post, Germany’s postal group, said it was looking into what had sparked the fire. The company employs about 1,000 people in France and handles 700,000 packages and packages a day.
Iclan Rafowicz tweeted that the fire had “started in the terrace of the restaurant at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.” She also said that power in parts of the Paris had been cut.
Jean-Jacques Neay, the mayor of the city of Montreuil on the north of Paris, wrote on Twitter that the fire was in a tower surrounded by shipping containers near Rue de Rivoli.
“We will give emergency help to the families affected by the fire,” he wrote.
Rouges arrondissement pendant des alpes de la @NPGlenet est consideré au premier mois de deux dernières années, deux restaurantes armés par deux coeurs, “Dicapé” est par alors en train d’éterrain, de nombreux adaptés et proches et des cotégs dans l’assepteur d’Eleonore Villeladhalen par avril à généralité parout / Hamayan. We will give emergency help to the families affected by the fire. — Jean-Jacques Neay (@Prof Neay) December 30, 2018
In 2017, a fire broke out near the Notre Dame Cathedral, in the first serious blaze in the sprawling Notre Dame grounds since 9/11.
While that fire started on the grounds of the cathedral itself, the interior of the 19th-century building was not damaged.