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03rd Jun 2016

The Louvre Museum in Paris has been shut as flooding threatens valuable artworks

Ellen Tannam

Paris has been very badly affected by flooding recently, with the River Seine rising to alarming levels.

Both The Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay have been closed in order to facilitate the movement of priceless artworks to safer, higher up levels of the buildings.

The Independent report that the staff of both museums are rushing to rescue valuable items from the underground storage areas in time before any damage occurs.

Northern France is experiencing some of the worst flooding in recent memory with the Seine rising above its preliminary level of 5 metres on Thursday afternoon.

Commercial barges and tourist boats have been banned from passing through Paris due to the dangerous weather conditions.

The flood alert level in Paris is at yellow and is expected to be upgraded to orange shortly.

Both museums held drills this year to deal with floods.

President Francois Hollande has declared the flooding ‘a natural catastrophe’.