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The enormous amount of water poured on Notre-Dame to put out the fire could now cause it to collapse

The enormous amount of water poured on Notre-Dame to put out the fire could now cause it to collapse A cultural jewel in the crown of France's Gothic architecture, Notre-Dame Cathedral is the most visited monument in France, with more than 12 million visitors each year. On Tuesday, however, firefighters and others were left to assess the damage after the building was devastated by a fire that was captured in images shared across the globe. Firefighters worked through Monday night and into Tuesday morning to douse the flames and surrounding structure to contain as much of the damage as possible, according to Reuters. Culture Minister Franck Riester outlined the damage that the building had sustained, speaking with France Inter. "The main structure is saved, but there is still a lot of instability," he said. "The situation is still precarious. Last night, as we've seen, two-thirds of the roof went up in smoke, the spire collapsed into the building, creating a hole in the vault. Last night, the transept crossing collapsed, in addition to much of the northern transept." In a cathedral where the floor plan is cross-shaped, the transept is the part that transects the main aisle at a right angle, forming the "arms" of the cross shape. Riester added that the fire brigades and architects on site were particularly concerned by waterlogged, charred wood above the vault. "All this is very fragile, and it is so finely built," he said, "that should any portion collapse, it could disrupt the whole construction." Philippe Charlier, the director of the Research and Education Department at the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac Museum, spoke with Business Insider to explain why the situation was "still precarious," as Riester said. "The wood has been drying out over roughly 800 years and, as a result, it was relatively 'light,'" Charlier said. "It's now completely saturated with water." The fire brigade used hoses to soak the wooden parts of the structure throughout the night, saturating the wood with water to the point at which it couldn't catch fire. "From the ceilings, the mortises, the tenons, and larger beams right down to the muntins that support the copper frames — all these [wooden structures] are completely waterlogged, but the walls weren't designed to support so much weight," Charlier said. "It's possible that the walls may crack and the entire structure will collapse because of the weight of the wood, as it's become too heavy for the masonry that was originally built." Wood's weight can nearly double when the wood is wet, and wood as dry as Notre-Dame's "soaks up water like a sponge," Charlier said. The police are still trying to ascertain the cause of the fire, according to The Guardian, though a report by Le Parisien indicated the police were looking into a theory that the fire started because of welding work.

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