BERLIN: An aquarium in Berlin that housed around 1,500 exotic fish erupted early Friday, spilling 1 million liters (264,172 gallons) of water and debris onto a main road in the bustling Mitte district, health services said emergency.
Around 100 rescue workers rushed to the site, a leisure complex which also houses a Radisson hotel and a museum as well as the aquarium.
Berlin marine life offered glass elevator rides through the Aquadom aquarium, which he claimed was the world’s tallest freestanding cylindrical aquarium at 14 meters (46 ft) tall.
Two people were injured by shards of glass and police evacuated the hotel from the resort fearing there was structural damage.
“Just chaos. The whole aquarium has erupted and what’s left is utter devastation. Lots of dead fish, debris,” a hotel guest said. Sandra Weer told Reuters.
Search and rescue dogs scoured the ground floor of the building, which was too littered with debris for responders to access, but found no casualties, Berlin Fire Department said on Twitter.
A fire department spokesman told Reuters it was still unclear what caused the AquaDom aquarium to burst.
“INCREDIBLE” DAMAGE
Sea Life said on its website that it would remain closed on Friday due to the incident. The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
Neither firefighters nor police commented on the fate of the fish, although police said on Twitter that there had been “incredible marine damage”.
About 350 people who had been staying at hotels in the complex were asked to pack their bags and leave the building, the fire department spokesperson said.
Buses were sent to shelter people leaving the hotel as temperatures outside Berlin hovered around -7 degrees Celsius (19.4 F), police said.
Emergency services have closed a main road next to the complex that leads from Alexanderplatz towards the Brandenburg Gate due to the large volume of water that had poured out of the building.
The aquarium was last renovated in 2020, according to the website of the DomAquaree complex. During the renovations, all the water was drained from the tank and the fish were moved to aquariums in the basement of the building, where there is a breeding care facility for the fish, he said. He specifies.
Around 100 rescue workers rushed to the site, a leisure complex which also houses a Radisson hotel and a museum as well as the aquarium.
Berlin marine life offered glass elevator rides through the Aquadom aquarium, which he claimed was the world’s tallest freestanding cylindrical aquarium at 14 meters (46 ft) tall.
Two people were injured by shards of glass and police evacuated the hotel from the resort fearing there was structural damage.
“Just chaos. The whole aquarium has erupted and what’s left is utter devastation. Lots of dead fish, debris,” a hotel guest said. Sandra Weer told Reuters.
Search and rescue dogs scoured the ground floor of the building, which was too littered with debris for responders to access, but found no casualties, Berlin Fire Department said on Twitter.
A fire department spokesman told Reuters it was still unclear what caused the AquaDom aquarium to burst.
“INCREDIBLE” DAMAGE
Sea Life said on its website that it would remain closed on Friday due to the incident. The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
Neither firefighters nor police commented on the fate of the fish, although police said on Twitter that there had been “incredible marine damage”.
About 350 people who had been staying at hotels in the complex were asked to pack their bags and leave the building, the fire department spokesperson said.
Buses were sent to shelter people leaving the hotel as temperatures outside Berlin hovered around -7 degrees Celsius (19.4 F), police said.
Emergency services have closed a main road next to the complex that leads from Alexanderplatz towards the Brandenburg Gate due to the large volume of water that had poured out of the building.
The aquarium was last renovated in 2020, according to the website of the DomAquaree complex. During the renovations, all the water was drained from the tank and the fish were moved to aquariums in the basement of the building, where there is a breeding care facility for the fish, he said. He specifies.
