Notre-Dame: Hunt for 'dad and daughter' in photo goes viral

An appeal to find two people pictured outside Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris minutes before the devastating fire devastated large parts of the 850-year-old church has gone viral on social media.

A heart-warming photo clicked by a US tourist shows what appears to be a father and daughter playing happily outside the iconic landmark in the French capital on Monday.

Tourist Brooke Windsor, 23, says she took the picture about an hour before the blaze ripped through the Paris landmark's main stone structure.

In a bid to find them, she posted the photo on Twitter.

"Twitter if you have any magic, help him find this," she wrote.

The tweet has been shared over 66,000 times by people across the world determined to help Windsor track down the pair.

Windsor, from Michigan told the BBC she had yet to identify the man and girl in the photo but was hopeful of doing so.

She admitted that she was unsure whether they were father and daughter, saying it was "simply the dynamic I observed from them while debating on interrupting this moment".

She called on Twitter users to "step up" and help her find them.

"If it were me, I'd want the memory. Hoping he feels the same way," Windsor, who is visiting the French capital with a friend, said.

The flames quickly reached the roof of the cathedral, destroying the wooden interior before toppling the spire.

Windsor said she stood among thousands of people in streets around the cathedral solemnly watching the fire in horror.

"We watched in shock and heartbreak with the rest of Paris," she said.

As France comes to terms with the disaster, her poignant photo was described as "historic" and a "special moment in time" by Twitter users.

"This is going to become THAT photo," Michelle Bhasin commented.

"So sad to see the building looking serene and safe in the sun. Just before this dreadful disaster," Theodora Wayte wrote.

"That's a keeper! Amazing photo. Could be historic too," Scott Greene posted.

French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to reconstruct the historic building even as the fire still burned, while a number of companies and business tycoons have so far pledged about USD 677 million between them.