“That allowed them to know all the entrances, the hallways, where they could hook up their hoses,” he said
Forensics police were at the scene to try to determine the cause of the fire.
ABC and other newspapers reported that a mechanical sweeping machine had caught fire in the site.
The site was built as a mosque — on the site of an earlier church — between the 8th and 10th centuries by the southern city’s then Muslim ruler, Abd ar-Rahman, an emir of the Umayyad dynasty.
After Christians reconquered Spain in the 13th century under King Ferdinand III of Castile, it was converted into a cathedral and architectural alterations were made over following centuries.
UNESCO designated the building a World Heritage Site in 1984, calling it “an architectural hybrid that joins together many of the artistic values of East and West and includes elements hitherto unheard-of in Islamic religious architecture, including the use of double arches.”
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 