An aquarium in Berlin housing about 1,500 oddly shaped fish crashed Friday, spilling one million liters of water and scattering debris onto a huge road in a busy area, emergency services said.
About 100 emergency services personnel rushed to the site, a coal complex that is home to the Radisson Hotel, a museum, shops and restaurants as well as what the Dome Aquarium says is the world’s largest free-standing cylindrical aquarium, at 14 metres.
“In addition to the unbelievable marine damage, two were hit by shards of glass,” Berlin police said on Twitter.
A spokesman for the Berlin fire service said that emergency services personnel could not enter the ground floor of the building because of the debris. He added that search and rescue dogs were sent to the accident site.
The spokesman said the cause of the fish tank explosion is not clear. The fire service or police have not commented on the fate of the fish.
A spokesman for the fire service said that about 350 guests in the hotel located inside the complex were asked to pack their belongings and leave the building.
Police said buses were sent to the complex to provide shelter for hotel guests who left the building, as temperatures in Berlin reached minus seven Celsius.
Emergency services closed a main road adjacent to the complex, from Alexanderplatz to the Brandenburg Gate, due to the huge amounts of water that overflowed outside the building.
And German police announced, on Friday, that a huge aquarium in an aquarium in central Berlin exploded, causing a wave of destruction in and around the “Sea Life” tourist area.
That #Aquarium #Aquadom in #Berlin-Mitte burst early Friday morning. #Police and #Fire department are in action. pic.twitter.com/AGckPrCuzV
— rbb|24 (@rbb24) December 16, 2022
Police spokesman Martin Stralow said officers were alerted shortly before 6 a.m. of a leak in the sump.
He said one person was slightly injured.
There was speculation that freezing temperatures contributed to the leak, but Stralow said the cause of the accident is still under investigation.
Operators say the museum contains the largest cylindrical tank in the world. The tank housed about 1,500 tropical fish before the accident and is a major tourist attraction in Berlin, according to the Associated Press.