The aquarium, which was last modernised in 2020, is a significant tourist magnet in Berlin. Hours after the incident, trucks began clearing away the debris that had spilled out onto the street in front of the hotel.īrightly coloured Lindt chocolate wrappers were scattered in front of the building where the chocolate shop had been damaged.Ī small crowd of tourists and onlookers snapped photos from behind the police line across the street. Building safetyĪ fire service spokesman said building safety experts were assessing the extent to which the hotel had sustained structural damage. Police said a Lindt chocolate store and several restaurants in the same building complex, as well as an underground parking garage next to the hotel, sustained damage from the incident. The furniture, everything has been flooded with water,” she said. Sandra Weeser, a German politician who was staying in the hotel, said she was awoken by a loud bang and thought it was due to an earthquake. A dead fish lies in the debris in front of the Radisson Blu hotel in Berlin Police said there was no evidence the incident resulted from an attack.Ībout 300 guests and employees had to be evacuated from the hotel surrounding the aquarium, police said. There was speculation freezing temperatures that got down to minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) overnight caused a crack in the acrylic glass tank, which then exploded under the weight of the water. Sea Life’s own aquarium is located in the same building and visitors can tour it and the AquaDom on a single ticket. Various organisations, including the Berlin Zoo, offered to take in the surviving fish.Īquarium operator Sea Life said it was saddened by the incident and was trying to get more information about the incident from the owners of the AquaDom. “Now it’s about evacuating them quickly,” Almut Neumann, a city official in charge of environmental issues for Berlin’s Mitte district, told German news agency DPA. Without electricity, their tanks were not receiving the necessary oxygen for them to survive, officials said. “Unfortunately, none of the 1,500 fish could be saved,” Giffey said.Įfforts were being made to save an additional 400 to 500 smaller fish housed in aquariums underneath the hotel lobby. A view shows the AquaDom after it burst in this still image obtained from a social media video Īmong the 80 types of fish, it housed were blue tang and clownfish, two colourful species known from the popular animated movie “Finding Nemo”. The 25-metre-tall (82-feet-tall) AquaDom was described as the world’s largest cylindrical tank and held more than a thousand tropical fish before the incident. “We would have had terrible human damage” had the aquarium burst even an hour later, once more people were awake and in the hotel and the surrounding area, Giffey said. “Despite all the destruction, we were still very lucky,” she said. Mayor Franziska Giffey said the incident unleashed a “veritable tsunami” of water, but the early morning timing prevented far more injuries. Police said parts of the building, which also contains a hotel, cafes and a chocolate store, were damaged on Friday morning as 1 million litres (264,000 gallons) of water poured from the aquarium shortly before 6am (05:00 GMT).īerlin’s fire service said two people were slightly injured. A drone was being used to survey the extent of the destruction.A huge aquarium in Berlin has burst, spilling debris, water and hundreds of tropical fish out of the AquaDom tourist attraction in the heart of the German capital. The hotel was evacuated and guests were offered shelter in heated buses amid freezing early morning temperatures, the fire service spokesman said. From there we saw the aquarium and all the destruction. Musician Iva Yudinski told Bild: “Early in the morning, around 6 o’clock, I heard a huge explosion, a bang. I’m worried that the whole structure of the building is damaged.” “All of our cellars are swamped with water now. “It was only when I looked down in the morning and saw the mess that I knew what had happened. He added: “I thought the ferris wheel had collapsed,” pointing across the street to a nearby Christmas market. “The whole building vibrated, and you heard the twisting of metal.” “I was woken by a loud bang,” Andi, who lives in a penthouse at the back of the hotel, told the Telegraph. Pictures and videos circulating online on Friday, apparently from guests staying at the hotel, showed extensive damage to the aquarium, with only the frame still standing.
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