Briton dies after jumping from Eiffel Tower

Jun 25, 2012 |

Paris

Tags:

Eiffel tower

A British man has committed suicide by climbing up the Eiffel Tower in Paris and jumping to his death, officials said on Monday.

Police spotted the man climbing the structure of the tower around 11:30 pm (2130 GMT) on Sunday. They evacuated the tower, sealed off the area and tried to negotiate with the man.

Firefighters tried to talk the British man down from the tower but failed and he jumped from between its second and third levels, a height of between 125 and 310 metres (410 to 1,017 feet), said Frederic Grosjean, deputy spokesman for the Paris firefighters' brigade.

Suicides by jumping from the tower ‘happen frequently enough, but it is rare for someone to be able to climb so high’, a police source said.

Firefighters intervened again on Monday when a woman aged about 30 also attempted to jump from the tower. She was talked out of the suicide and lifted by helicopter from the structure.

Eiffel Tower management refused to comment on the number of suicides at the site every year, saying only: "It is always too many."

Built in two years by engineer Gustave Eiffel as the centrepiece of the 1889 world fair, the Eiffel Tower is a hallmark of the Paris skyline and one of the most visited tourist sites in the world, with 7.1 million visitors in 2011, an average of nearly 20,000 visitors per day.

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