Berlin Aquarium with a million liters of water, 1,500 large, fish bursts | Videos | World news
An aquarium in Berlin that is home to around 1,500 large fish burst early Friday, spilling 1 million (264,172 gallons) of water and debris onto a major road in the busy Mitte district, emergency services said.
Around 100 emergency responders were rushed to the site, a resort complex that also houses a Radisson hotel and museum as well as an aquarium.
Sea Life Berlin offers glass elevator rides through the Aquadom aquarium, which is said to be the largest cylindrical aquarium in the world at 14 meters (46 feet) in height.
Two people were injured by shards of glass, and police evacuated the hotel complex out of concern that there might be structural damage.
“It’s just chaos. The whole aquarium is bursting and what’s left is total destruction. Many dead fish, garbage,” hotel guest Sandra Weeser told Reuters.
Search and rescue dogs searched the ground floor of the building, which was too littered for responders to access, but found no victims, the Berlin Fire Department said on Twitter.
A spokesman for the fire brigade told Reuters that it was not yet clear what caused the AquaDom aquarium to burst.
‘Unbelievable’ damage
Sea Life said on its website that it will be closed on Friday because of the incident. The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment by Reuters.
Neither the football club nor the police have commented on the fate of the fish, although the police said on Twitter that it was “unbelievable marine damage”.
About 350 people who have been staying at the hotel in the complex have been asked to pack their belongings and leave the building, said a Fire Brigade spokesman.
Buses were sent to provide shelter for people leaving the hotel as outside temperatures in Berlin hovered around -7 degrees Celsius (19.4°F), police said.
Emergency services closed a major road along the complex that goes from Alexanderplatz to the Brandenburg Gate due to the large volume of water that has flowed out of the building.
The aquarium was last renovated in 2020, according to the website of the DomAquaree complex. During the upgrade work, all the water is removed from the tank and the fish are moved to aquariums in the basement, where there is a breeding ground for the fish, he said.
