Caroline Blumberg/European Pressphoto Agency
The flooding could hardly have come at a less opportune time for Lourdes, whose economy depends heavily on the summer tourist season.
PARIS — The waters of the Christian holy site of Lourdes, reputed for their powers of healing, have been cruel this week.
Snowmelt from the Pyrénées joined with heavy storms to form surging floodwaters in the rivers of southwestern France on Tuesday and Wednesday. The generally tranquil Gave de Pau, which cuts a sharp southward bend along the edge of Lourdes, rose by as much as 15 feet, officials said, spilling its banks and inundating the celebrated grotto and vast subterranean church there.
Pilgrimages were canceled and hotels evacuated. Officials of the Sanctuary of Notre Dame de Lourdes, a complex of soaring basilicas and chapels on and within the hillside above the grotto, partially closed the site on Tuesday, estimating that the flooding had caused several million dollars’ worth of damages.
And so Lourdes, visited by nearly six million pilgrims every year, many of them looking to be healed of pain and disease, turned to the faithful for financial relief.
“The sanctuary will not recover from the consequences of this natural disaster without the generosity of everyone!” read a mailing released by the sanctuary on Wednesday. The appeal included a mailing address for checks and a link to an online giving portal, as well as the sanctuary’s bank codes, for payment by wire transfer. Insurance is expected to cover much, but not all, of the damages.
“This leaves us quite traumatized,” Mayor Jean-Pierre Artiganave told Agence France-Presse.
The flooding could hardly have come at a less opportune time for Lourdes, whose economy depends heavily on the summer tourist season, when pilgrims — mostly Roman Catholic — from France, the rest of Europe and across the world flock to the holy site. Lourdes, a city of just 15,000, counts nearly 200 hotels, a concentration per square kilometer said to be second in France only to Paris.
Pilgrimages by several thousand faithful were canceled Wednesday and for the coming days, sanctuary and city officials said, though masses were still being held in the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception above the cave. At least 1,000 other pilgrims were evacuated from hotels in the city center, according to Mr. Artiganave; floodwaters had swelled to “centennial” levels and reached the second story of some hotels along the banks of the Gave de Pau, Mr. Artiganave told the Paris newspaper Le Figaro.
Floodwaters in the region have killed two elderly people, destroyed roads and forced the evacuation of nearly 3,000 from their homes, according to Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who traveled to Lourdes on Wednesday. About 7,000 inhabitants remained without electricity on Wednesday evening, French news media reported.
The grotto, which reportedly filled with as much as five feet of water this week, is among the most visited pilgrimage sites in the Roman Catholic faith. It became known as a place of miracles after several reports of apparitions of the Virgin Mary there in 1858.
The Catholic Church has now recognized 68 official miracles at Lourdes; 49 of those involve drinking or bathing in the spring water that flows into the cave. (Bottles of Lourdes water can be ordered from the sanctuary; buyers pay only for shipping and handling.) A television station, TV Lourdes, generally provides a live video feed from the cave. It was forced to cease broadcasting on Tuesday evening, however, when the electricity was cut.
Less violent floodwaters damaged the grotto last October, though they did not reach the underground Basilica of St. Pius X. That flooding caused about $3 million in damages, paid largely by donations from the faithful.
“The damage is much more significant than in 2012,” the sanctuary reported on its Web site, calling the situation a “catastrophe.”
“It is impossible to put numbers on it for the moment, but we fear the worst.”
Cleanup work had begun by Wednesday evening, when the waters began to recede, officials said, and in the early evening the sanctuary issued its call for donations.
“Lourdes has one element of good luck,” Mayor Artiganave said. “It’s that the world is generous with Lourdes. When Lourdes is in trouble — we saw it in October — people respond.”
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