Firefighters have removed crosses from the towers of two Luxembourg churches after storms across the country on Sunday left the structures in a precarious position.
Teams were dispatched to Bivange and Esch-Lallange, where the crosses were in danger of falling.
The CGDIS fire service said it was a “very rare” occurrence during what was “a relatively intense, but short-lived” storm on Sunday afternoon, when Météolux had issued a yellow alert for thunderstorms.
“The firefighters’ mission during a windy episode generally involves clearing trees, branches, or even signs,” said CGDIS spokesperson Cédric Gantzer.
Firefighters used cranes to remove the crosses © Photo credit: CGDIS
While the reason for the intervention is rare, the likelihood of two identical situations occurring at the same time is even more so.
“I remember interventions in similar situations involving weather vanes, but never involving church tower crosses,” said Gantzer, without ruling out the possibility that such a case has already occurred previously in Luxembourg.
“It’s possible that the municipalities [on that occasion] took charge of the problem without calling the fire brigade,” he added.
Firefighters mobilised their only two cranes for the operation, which took about an hour for each church, and involved ten personnel.
“Given the weight of this type of object, which is naturally unknown at the outset, and given the height, we decided to use cranes rather than ladders, as a safety precaution,” said Gantzer.
Once removed, the two crosses were left with the respective churches. “We didn’t bring them home; they belong to the archdiocese,” said Gantzer. It will now be up to the Church authorities to decide what will happen to the two crosses.
(This article was originally published by Virgule. Machine translated, with editing and adaptation by John Monaghan.)