A LARGE fire broke out at Cordoba’s iconic mosque-turned-cathedral on Friday evening in harrowing scenes reminiscent of the blaze that tore through Notre Dame in Paris.
Fears quickly mounted that the UNESCO World Heritage Site could be lost as videos shared on social media showed flames and smoke engulfing an area of the medieval monument.
But Cordoba’s mayor said firefighters quickly contained the blaze and saved the cathedral from total destruction.
“The monument is saved. There will be no spread, it will not be a catastrophe, let’s put it that way,” said Jose Maria Bellido on Cadena TV.
Some 35 firefighters and six fire engines were deployed to contain the blaze, which reportedly began after a mechanical sweeping machine caught on fire.
Unfortunately, the roof of a chapel where the fire broke out collapsed in the early hours of Saturday morning, while two other chapels were damaged by the flames.
The Mezquita de Cordoba welcomed over two million visitors in 2024 – and tourists were able to enter the building on Saturday as normal, with only the area impacted by the inferno shut to the public.
The Mezquita is one of Spain’s best-known examples of Christian-Moorish architecture.
The site was originally built as a Visigothic church in the 6th century before a mosque was constructed between the 8th and 10th centuries by the southern city’s then Muslim ruler, Abd al-Rahman.
After Christians reconquered Spain in the 13th century, the building was converted into a cathedral.
The Mezquita is widely considered a jewel of Islamic architecture and is most famous for its vast hypostyle hall filled with rows of striking red-and-white horseshoe arches.
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