On fire's anniversary, Notre-Dame's great bell to break its silence

A year on from the inferno that gutted Notre-Dame de Paris and stunned the world, the cathedral's great bell will ring out on Wednesday (April 15) evening, as a mark of the building's resilience and that of the medics battling France's coronavirus epidemic.

The bourdon bell has sounded just once since April 15, 2019, when the blaze broke out that consumed the spire and the roof and, officials say, came within half an hour of burning the 850-year-old cathedral to the ground.

It will toll at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT), coinciding with the hour when Parisians applaud from their windows and balconies in tribute to the frontline staff risking their lives to treat COVID-19 patients.

The outbreak has killed close to 16,000 in France.

But the cathedral's southern belfry where the 13-tonne bell - cast in 1681 and the second biggest in France - is housed, is structurally undamaged.

It is traditionally rung for major religious celebrations, papal visits and presidential funerals, and has sounded once since the fire, in September, in a tribute to former president Jacques Chirac who died that month.

On Wednesday evening, two bellringers will set it in motion again.

"Our objective is for worship services to resume in five years, so that is on April 16, 2024," Jean-Louis Georgelin, the retired army general leading the restoration project, told Reuters.

"Of course, that doesn't mean everything will be finished."

With France's 67 million people under lockdown as Europe battles to contain the coronavirus outbreak, the delicate work to make safe Notre-Dame has shuddered to an abrupt halt. Social distancing measures and security barriers ordered by authorities could not be adhered to on site, so workers were sent home.

When President Emmanuel Macron announced the stay-at-home order on March 17, workers had been a week away from starting to dismantle the thousands of pieces of scaffolding left in a tangled molten mess by the fire.

The work of removing the scaffolding had been slated for the autumn, but was delayed by an investigation into the dispersal of clouds of poisonous lead during the blaze and then by a series of winter storms.