Flooded Lourdes calls for help

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.

"It's catastrophic. We cannot see how we could reopen in acceptable conditions in the weeks to come," said Mathias Terrier, the sanctuary's spokesman.

"Everything is broken, everything is destroyed. We don't know what to do."

The town has only just recovered from similar floods which caused more than €2 million ($3.4 million) worth of damage.

Jean-Pierre Artiganav, the mayor of Lourdes, said the damage ran into "tens of millions of euros" and the clean-up operation could take months.

On a visit to Lourdes, Francois Hollande, the French President, said: "Everything will be done so that the sanctuary will be accessible again as soon as possible."