Thursday, October 25, 2012

Lourdes reopens as floodwaters recede

Lourdes is beginning to come back to life after the weekend’s flash floods left the French shrine town and its renowned grotto under 1.5m of water when the River Gave de Pau burst its banks.

Work on the clean-up is continuing as efforts are made to remove the 20cm of mud dumped by the flooding around the grotto area and basilica.  

Bishop Nicolas Brouwet has said, “The baths will be closed for many days,” however, the first pilgrims are beginning to return to areas now deemed safe. 

Between 450 and 500 pilgrims, many elderly, sick and disabled were evacuated from riverside hotels and other accommodation on Saturday and brought to accommodation on higher ground.  

Among the evacuees was a group of 32 Irish pilgrims aged from their mid-20s up to their mid-80s, from Whitehall parish in Dublin.

Spokesperson for the group, Rory McDyer of Rory McDyer Travel in Dublin’s Clontarf described the scene in the immediate aftermath of the floods as, “frightening.” He added, “The river was up to the level of the wall.”

The group was evacuated to a nearby town hall and then spent the night in a hospital before being flown out. Mr McDyer said he felt the evacuation should have been ordered on Friday night, as the river was already very swollen at that stage.  

On Sunday, the most iconic spot of Lourdes, the Massabielle cave where Our Lady appeared to St Bernadette in 1858, remained flooded with debris including wood, candles and branches floating on the water.  

Speaking to AFP, the Treasurer of the Sanctuaries, Thierry Castillo, said last weekend’s floods were the most damaging in thirty years. 

“We have serious damages that will run into hundreds of thousands of euro,” Mr Castillo explained.

During Sunday’s canonisation ceremony for seven new saints in Rome, Pope Benedict prayed for Lourdes, saying: “Let us turn to the Virgin Mary with a thought for Lourdes, the victim of flash floods that inundated the grotto where the Madonna appeared.”

The cost of the flood damage and clean-up is estimated to be in the region of €2 million and is particularly unwelcome news in view of Lourdes’ financial deficit last year of €1 million, due to a fall in donations linked to the recession.  

Lourdes, located in the French Pyrenees, draws six million pilgrims a year and has seen over sixty miracles since the apparition in the 19th century.