(CNN) — A 14-meter-tall aquarium housing around 1,500 exotic fish blew up Friday morning, injuring at least two people and filling a nearby street with water and debris, Berlin police and firefighters said.
The AquaDom aquarium was located in the lobby of a Radisson Collection hotel, in the DomAquarée business and entertainment complex.
“In addition to the incredible maritime damage (…) two people were injured by glass splinters,” the Berlin police said on Twitter.
The city’s fire service reported that one hundred firefighters had been deployed to the scene. “The aquarium is damaged, the water is leaking,” the tweet read, adding that “the situation was not entirely clear at the moment.”
Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey said on Twitter that around a million liters of water had leaked from the AquaDom.
Fire department spokesman Adrian Wentzel told CNN affiliate NTV that the incident occurred around 5:50 a.m. local time. Wentzel said glass and other debris had been removed from the nearby street. Emergency services were forced to close a major street next to the building due to the large amount of water that overflowed. Wentzel added that they are still investigating the cause of the incident.
Emergency services go to the place where the AquaDom exploded, in Berlin.
Images shared by hotel guests on social media this Friday show extensive damage to the giant structure, with glass and debris scattered on the floor.
“Just chaos. The whole aquarium blew up and what’s left is total devastation. Lots of dead fish, debris. It’s quite a drama,” a hotel guest told Archyde.com.
Radisson Hotels said on its website that guests would be relocated and the hotel would be closed until further notice.
Authorities have yet to comment on what happened to the fish.
According to the resort website DomAquarée, AquaDom was the largest cylindrical aquarium in the world and contained a transparent-walled elevator for visitors. The complex also houses apartments, museums, shops, cafes and restaurants. The aquarium was last modernized in 2020, the operator said.