A woman has fallen to her death from inside the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral in London.
The woman fell 30 metres from the cathedral’s Whispering Gallery onto the stone floor below on Wednesday morning.
The whispering gallery – a narrow walkway towards the bottom of the building’s dome – is open to tourists. It is currently the highest publicly accessible point in the building.
This video, uploaded to YouTube by a tourist in 2013, was recorded from the gallery and shows how high up it is. A metal railing separates tourists from the drop.
Visitors, who pay £16 for an adult ticket, are allowed access to the gallery. Most of the time they can also visit two higher-up external viewing galleries, but these are currently closed for maintenance.
City of London Police confirmed to Business Insider that a woman had died. They said they are not treating the death as suspicious, and that the circumstances seem consistent with a suicide.
Visitors and staff were inside at the time, and witnessed the death.
First aiders and paramedics tried to save the woman, but she was killed by the fall, which took place at around 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
Cathedral staff have closed the building for the rest of the day. It will open as normal on Thursday.
A statement on the St Paul's website said the church community is "deeply saddened" by the death.
It continued: "We think and pray especially at this time for the woman who died, and for all those who were close to her and who loved and cared for her."
The dome, designed by architect Sir Christopher Wren and completed in 1711, is one of the most recognisable features of the London skyline.
The Whispering Gallery is at the base of the dome, which continues up for another 55m.