1,500 dead fish and half a hotel were destroyed after a huge aquarium exploded, but Berlin was spared an even bigger tragedy

The Berlin Fire Brigade received an automatic distress signal at 5:43 am. Something happened at the Radisson Collection Hotel next door to the famous Berliner Dom. According to eyewitnesses, a strong bang was heard at the same time. Seconds later, a million liters of water spilled onto the hotel floor onto the streets. The unimaginable happened. The giant aquarium in the lobby exploded. The ground floor of the hotel was left as a battlefield. The 1,500 fish in the sixteen-meter-high tank did not survive the impact and scattered among the pieces. Furniture was destroyed, electricity was cut off, and parts of the façade were pulled out into the street by the huge water pressure. At the site, measuring stations measured a very small earthquake.

Many of the hotel’s three hundred or so guests initially did not realize what exactly happened outside their room door. They heard a bang, but no more. Some thought it was thunder until the fire brigade lifted them off their beds. There were policemen and firefighters everywhere. “The whole building smelled of fish,” musician Eva Yudinsky told the Guardian. Zeitung Berlin.

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On Friday, firefighters and police dogs searched for possible victims amid the devastation. Two people eventually had to go to the hospital for treatment because of the shards of glass. But it could have been much worse. If this had happened later in the day, there would have been many more deaths. This says Franziska Giffe, the mayor of Berlin in reaction to the German magazine woman. The mayor talks about a lucky accident. “This is unimaginable devastation. It is like after a tsunami.”

Not a small crack

The aquarium, officially called AquaDom, was opened in Berlin in 2003 after an American company lifted it through the roof during the construction of the hotel. At 16 meters high and 11.5 meters in diameter, it would have been “the largest free-standing cylindrical aquarium in the world”. The acrylic glass was about 20 cm thick and could have had a total weight of 2,000 tons. Because there is a glass elevator in the middle of the basin, the cost of the complex structure has reached millions.

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After Friday morning there will be nothing left of this aquarium. “If the aquarium breaks down, it suddenly explodes,” said a fire department spokesperson. woman. “This is not a small crack where water is coming out.” The official cause of the accident is not yet clear. According to Iris Spranger, of the Interior Ministry in the Berlin Senate, the first indications are “physical exhaustion”. The police do not suspect foul play. According to German media, the AquaDom was going to have a renovation in 2020. Cracks were discovered in the walls and ceilings of the hotel by firefighters, but it is not clear if they were there before the aquarium exploded.