Giant aquarium in Berlin hotel burst – large-scale operation of the fire brigade

Berlin The large aquarium “Auqadom” in the Berlin Hotel Radisson Blu with 1000 cubic meters of water and 1500 fish has burst. Parts of the surrounding hotel were destroyed on Friday morning. According to the police, there were initially no indications of a targeted, violent attack. According to police, two people were injured and taken to the hospital.

The police spoke of a very loud noise or a bang that could be heard. The fire brigade received an alarm from an automatic fire alarm in the hotel at 5:43 a.m.

Parts of the facade of the hotel in which the aquarium was located flew onto the street. Large amounts of water spilled out and onto the street. The police and fire brigade have been on duty since the morning, each with around 100 people.

The two injured are said to be hotel employees. The cause of the accident is not yet known, spokesmen for the police and fire brigade emphasized.

The scene of the accident is very close to Berlin’s Alexanderplatz with the television tower. The hotel is part of the DomAquarée city quarter in Berlin, which also houses Sea Life. According to the operator, the “Auqadom” was the “largest, cylindrical, free-standing aquarium in the world”, an attraction in Berlin well-known to many tourists.

According to the fire brigade, the giant tank with a million liters of water was destroyed very quickly. “If the aquarium is defective, then it bursts suddenly,” said a spokesman for the fire brigade. “It’s not a small crack from which the water is leaking, but the entire aquarium suddenly burst.”

The owner company of the destroyed large aquarium was “dismayed by the accident”. The reason for the bursting of the huge cylinder full of water is still “completely unclear,” said the spokesman for Union Investment. “We are currently trying to get a more accurate picture of the situation and the damage caused in coordination with the police and fire brigade on site.” You also have to speak of “luck in misfortune” when you consider what could have happened.

Caregivers are on site to take care of the affected tenants and offer support to the injured hotel employee. “We very much regret that a large proportion of the fish kept in the Aquadom in a species- and animal-friendly manner died as a result of the severe destruction of the acrylic cylinder and the leakage of the water,” it said in a statement.

According to the fire brigade, the giant tank with a million liters of water was destroyed very quickly. “If the aquarium is defective, then it bursts suddenly,” said a spokesman for the fire brigade. “It’s not a small crack from which the water is leaking, but the entire aquarium suddenly burst.” The approximately 1,500 fish that lived there could not be saved.

As reported by the fire brigade, a large part of the water probably ran through the doors on the ground floor onto the street and there into the gullies. Not much water was found in the basements. The destroyed ground floor was searched for people with rescue dogs.

Because of the severe damage, the guests of the surrounding hotel also had to leave the building, as a spokesman for the fire brigade said. Around 350 people were still in the hotel.

The “Aquadom” was a container made of acrylic glass that was 16 meters high and had a diameter of 11.5 meters. Visitors could ride through the interior of the aquarium in an elevator.

About 1,500 fish from over 100 different species lived in the tank. The aquarium was filled with a million liters of salt water. That would be 1000 cubic meters of water weighing 1000 tons.

According to the information, the aquarium was extensively modernized by summer 2020. After a corona break, the aquarium was reopened in 2022.

There are large-scale barriers around the Berlin hotel in which the burst large aquarium is located. There were a number of fire and police cars on site on Friday morning. Sirens could be heard. The doors of the building seemed to be pushed open, in front of them were a number of objects, as a dpa reporter reported.

After all around 1,500 fish from the burst large aquarium “Aquadom” are dead, veterinarians concentrate on rescuing the remaining animals in the basement of the hotel building. “Now it’s a matter of evacuating them quickly,” said Almut Neumann, environmental councilor of Berlin-Mitte, the German Press Agency. About 400 to 500 smaller fish are in aquariums under the lobby where the destroyed “Aquadome” was. The vessels are currently not supplied with electricity. “That’s a problem. The fish in the aquarium need electricity to supply them with oxygen.”

“We will first try to evacuate the endangered species,” said Berlin State Secretary for Consumer Protection, Markus Kamrad, at the scene of the accident. There are numerous offers of help from institutions that are willing to accept the fish, said City Councilor Neumann. It is also being checked how the capacity in the neighboring underwater world Sealife is with other aquariums. This facility is initially unaffected. However, the fire brigade wants to check possible damage, as a spokesman said. The underwater world is a little further away from the hotel in the same building complex.