LAST UPDATE | 16 Dec 2022
A GIANT AQUARIUM containing around 1,500 tropical fish has burst in Berlin, flooding a hotel lobby and a nearby street and leaving two people injured.
It remains unclear what caused the incident at the 14-metre high AquaDom aquarium at around 5.50am (4.50am Irish time), police said.
“A million litres of water and all the fish inside spilled onto the ground floor” of the hotel complex housing the aquarium, a spokesman for the Berlin fire department told AFP.
Two people suffered injuries from glass splinters and had to be hospitalised, the spokesman added.
More than 100 emergency workers were sent to the scene, which was scattered with glass and other debris.
The cylindrical AquaDom, which opened in 2004, was a popular tourist attraction in the German capital.
It is located in the foyer of a Radisson Blu hotel and had a clear-walled elevator built inside to be used by visitors to the Sea Life leisure complex.
According to the Sea Life website, the AquaDom is the largest cylindrical, freestanding aquarium in the world.
Guests at the hotel reported being woken up by a loud bang and the feeling of a small earthquake, before seeing the destroyed aquarium and wrecked hotel lobby.
“It was a full-on tsunami,” said Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey, adding that it was pure luck the incident had happened in the early morning when very few people were around.
“Despite the terrible destruction we’re seeing, we’re lucky people weren’t seriously injured,” she told reporters.
The 1,500 fish in the tank “could not be saved”, Giffey added.
However, firefighters said later that some of the fish were in fact rescued and taken to an adjacent aquarium.
“We did manage to find fish that were still alive — they were in places where water had collected,” a fire brigade spokesman told local media, saying “several dozen” had been saved.
More than 100 emergency workers were at the scene, which was scattered with glass and other debris.
One hotel guest, Claudia Gonzales said that she “jolted out of bed” when the aquarian burst.
“It sounded almost like a firework but the hotel actually shook inside,” she told AFP.
At the time of the incident, there were around 300 guests staying at the hotel. They all have since been evacuated.
‘Frozen parrot fish’
Berlin police said on Twitter that the incident had caused “incredible maritime damage” with the death of the hundreds of fish.
Water was also “massively” leaking onto the adjoining Karl Liebknecht Street, they said, forcing the partial closure of the major traffic artery. Tram service was also suspended.
The area around the complex was sealed off and sniffer dogs were being used to search for possible victims among the devastation.
Pictures and videos circulating online today, apparently from guests staying at the hotel, showed extensive damage to the transparent aquarium, with only the frame still standing.
Bits of broken window panes and damaged furniture were scattered all around.
German lawmaker Sandra Weeser, who was staying at the hotel when the aquarium burst, said she was woken up by “a kind of shock wave”.
“There was a slight tremor of the building and my first guess was an earthquake,” she told the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper.
The area where the aquarium once stood was now just “dark and wet” she said, recalling how she saw “one of those large parrot fish lying on the ground, frozen”.
The hotel has been evacuated and guests were offered shelter in heated buses amid freezing early morning temperatures, the fire service spokesman said.
A drone was being used to survey the extent of the destruction, he added.
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