The blades broke off the iconic Moulin Rouge windmill in Paris, one of the French capital’s most famous landmarks, and came crashing to the ground.
The collapse occurred a matter of months before the city is set to host the Olympic Games.
According to firefighters there is no risk of a second collapse, in a statement overnight.
On Thursday morning, the police said that the incident took place just before 2am. Fortunately there were no injuries.
The police said: “As a result of the weather conditions and possible dilapidation, the wings of the Moulin Rouge building fell onto the public highway”.
Despite there being no injuries “two people who were on site at the time of the incident are nevertheless in shock”.
A Moulin Rouge official told Agence France-Presse: “Fortunately this happened after closing.
“Every week, the cabaret’s technical teams check the windmill mechanism and did not note any problems.”
The source, who wished not to be named, added that there was no additional information that could explain the collapse.
Pictures shared on social media show the mangled blades lying on the ground, some of them bent.
According to Le Figaro, Jean-Victor Clerico, general manager of the Moulin Rouge, said that “every month an organisation looks after the maintenance of the wings and checks their condition”.
The official didn’t know what had caused the incident: “We know it was not a malicious act”. He suspected some kind of technical fault was to blame.
This is the first incident of this kind that’s happened since the cabaret first opened in 1989.
The venue is found at the bottom of the Montmartre – a hill in the north of the city. It’s one of Paris’ most-visited landmarks and is known for being the birthplace of the distinctive can-can dance.
The site has seen one serious incident before, however. In 1915 there was a fire which forced its closure for nine years.
