General Manager Moulin Rouge: "Fortunately there was no one underneath, no one was hurt"

Paris (France), Apr 25 (EFE) - The emblematic Parisian cabaret of the Moulin Rouge lost its blades early this morning, which broke off and fell to the ground in an accident without victims whose causes are unknown at this time.

The blades collapsed on the Boulevard de Clichy just after 2.00 local time (00.00 GMT) for unknown reasons and also slightly damaged the facade of the building.

CAMERA: RAQUEL FERNANDEZ

SOUNDBITES OF JEAN-VICTOR CLERICO, GENERAL MANAGER OF THE MOULIN ROUGE IN PARIS, FRANCE.

TRANSLATION TOTALS:

1. "What we saw was that just before 2 a.m., the wings of the mill broke off and fell on the sidewalk, on the roadway, and fortunately at that time of night there were not many people on the boulevard. The establishment was closed because our show ends a little bit earlier, about 01:15, 01:30, so, fortunately, there was nobody underneath, nobody was hurt, nobody was killed, so that's the most important thing this morning, and obviously since this morning everybody has been working hard to put the wings back in place."

2. "The Moulin is 135 years old, but these wings are about 20 years old. A little over 20 years ago they were replaced with a lighter structure, a mixture of wood and aluminum. What we know this morning is that it was not the wings themselves that broke, as they fell in one piece. We believe it was the shaft that supports the wings that was damaged. And we are still quite surprised, as the wings are checked by an outside company every 2 months. So there are periodic inspections every 2 months by an authorized body".

3. "The objective is to understand the anomaly to be able to rebuild the wings quickly. It has already been sent to the workshop so we can take the templates and patterns to rebuild the wings and put them back in place as soon as possible. The goal is to go fast because the Moulin Rouge without its wings is a bit sad, everyone has been telling us that since this morning, so we are going to go very fast to rebuild its wings and rehabilitate the Moulin Rouge."