World News for Students of English

03-12-2020 07:00

Notre-Dame is a gothic cathedral in Paris, France, and people consider it one of the symbols of the city and the French nation.

In April 2019, the roof of Notre-Dame caught fire and it was burning for about 15 hours. The fire broke out when workers were restoring the cathedral. Hundreds of firefighters tried to stop the fire, but the damage was very serious. 200 tons of roof scaffolding melted in the building.

Last week, officials announced that workers had removed all the scaffolding. It was a risky operation because the workers worried that the cathedral could fall down. Luckily, it did not happen and reconstruction can begin in 2021. The French government hopes that the works will finish in spring 2024.

Difficult words: restore (to repair a building to make it look like it did in the past), scaffolding (a metal structure that workers build on the outside of a building and they use it while they are building or repairing the building), melt (to become liquid because of heat)

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