Firefights at the Cité des Sciences et Industries Museum at La Villette in Paris on Thursday

A huge fire broke out overnight at one of Europe's biggest science museums, the Cité des sciences in Paris, engulfing a building site of some 10,000 metres in smoke and flames. Firefighters were still battling the blaze on Thursday morning.

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The Cité des sciences was closed on Thursday morning thanks to the fire that broke out before dawn.

Emergency services, who were alerted at 2.30am, rushed 120 firefighters and 30 fire engines to the scene.

By 7.30am they had contained the blaze but not put it out.

Two firefighters were overcome by the intense heat.

The museum, built on the site of Paris's former slaughterhouses, attracts over three million visitors a year and disappointed families were turned away on Thursday because of the disaster.

The fire broke out on the site of a planned shopping mall, costing 110 million euros and to be known as Vill up, which was due to open on 15 October.

There were no fire alarms because it was a building site, the fire service said, comparing the situation to the blaze that broke out at the Paris headquarters of French public radio last year.

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