Officials in Lourdes have appealed to the Pope to intervene after the worst floods in a century turned the Catholic shrine into a disaster zone, with tens of thousands of pilgrims unable to visit for the foreseeable future.
Locals said the shrine's famous grotto now looked like a vision of
"the apocalypse" and is closed to the public, and still submerged under a metre of mud.
Much of the site, which draws 6 million visitors a year, will be in no fit state to open in the coming weeks when the high season begins, local officials have warned.
Chapels and the bathing pools filled with water that pilgrims believe has curative powers lie in ruins after being overrun by fierce floodwaters. Only the Basilica of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception has escaped unscathed.
Three people have died in the southwestern region in the floods and the Government is due to declare parts of the region a disaster zone.
