The Argentinian who left Notre-Dame a few minutes before the fire: "Tears come to my eyes"

Ezequiel Struminger is a doctor, he is 64 years old and lives in Tierra del Fuego. In February, after years of French lessons, he decided to realize his dream of visiting Paris for the first time. He arrived in Ciudad Luz last Friday with his daughter Greta, 30, who lives in Berlin. They walked, they ate, they listened to music. That afternoon, twenty minutes after experiencing Notre Dame Cathedral, they remained speechless on the Austerlitz bridge. The cathedral they had just visited

He was catching fire.

"The dome has just been demolished, it's a disaster, the tears are coming," said Ezequiel.
THE NATION, between silences to find the broken voice, while observing the fire on the Seine. It is 7:30 in Paris and the fire took a little more than half an hour. He was walking with his daughter on one of the bridges that spans the Parisian river when he saw a huge column of smoke in the distance. He was careful and saw the shape of the building that was on fire. "Is this a church burning?" He asked a Frenchman next to him. "Yes," answered the man, "it is Our Lady."

At peak times, everything is stopped. Tourists and locals who have left work slowed or got out of their car to look in the direction of the cloud or film it with their mobile phone. There were faces of concern. "When a piece of the tower sank, everyone shouted" No! "One girl started crying and another was holding her head, a shot was fired and part of it collapsed," says Greta.

A few minutes before, Ezekiel and his daughter were in the cathedral, full of people. Two days are missing for Easter and today Paris is full of European tourists who have escaped to visit the French capital. "There was a lot of waiting line to go in, I do not know what could have happened to them all, I hope that they were evacuated quickly," said the l & # 39; man.

"Here, there are doubts as to whether there was an attack or an accident, many enter the newspapers and social networks from their cellphone, they have read that the authorities say that it was an accident, "adds Ezequiel, still moved.

"At first, around me, I heard nervous laughter Suddenly everyone became very serious, with their phone, and I see people with ugly faces, I'm really sorry, c & rsquo; Is like a death, something that does not recover "He said, around 8 pm, that the sun goes down and that the flames become more visible in the distance.