 "The fire brigade deployed at least 60 fire trucks and 200 firefighters to the scene, while no casualties were reported. Flames lit up the night sky and authorities closed part of the main ring road around Paris to allow access to the burning building for fire-fighting vehicles. AFP")
At least 200 firefighters tried to douse a massive fire in Paris’ new sports complex, designed by Renzo Piano, which covered the city in a thick layer of smoke. Authorities urged residents to steer clear of the fire zone as firefighters battled the blaze that ripped through one of the city’s biggest recycling plants.
The fire brigade deployed at least 60 fire trucks and 200 firefighters to the scene, while no casualties were reported. Flames lit up the night sky and authorities closed part of the main ring road around Paris to allow access to the burning building for fire-fighting vehicles.
“The building is completely gutted and destroyed,” Geoffrey Boulard, mayor for the affected 17th arrondissement, told BFM television, but all staff inside had been evacuated.
“Fire fighters arrived very quickly, but the fire happened underground and then spread through the building,” Boulard said.Geoffrey Boulard, mayor for the affected 17th arrondissement, told BFM television
The fire at the Syctom recycling plant was right next to Paris’s main court complex, whose centrepiece is a glass skyscraper designed by Italian architect Piano and inaugurated in 2018.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe plant, which started operations in 2019, was designed to handle household waste for nearly a million Paris residents, according to city authorities.
“The most important thing tonight is that a disaster on this scale did not have any human damage,” the site’s president Corentin Duprey told BFM.
With inputs from AFP