Note: This article is continuously updated.
The large aquarium Sea Life in the immediate vicinity of the Berlin Cathedral has burst. That said a police spokesman who was on site on Friday morning. Around 5:45 a.m. there was a very loud noise. Parts of the facade of the hotel in which the aquarium was located flew onto the street.
Due to the severe damage, the guests of the surrounding hotel also have to leave the building. This was explained by a spokesman for the Berlin fire brigade. Around 350 people were still in the hotel.
The police had previously tweeted that water was leaking "massively" from the aquarium. "It flows into the street." The fire brigade initially reported on Twitter: "The aquarium is damaged, water is leaking. The situation is not clear at the moment." The fire brigade is deployed with 100 firefighters in the Hotel DomAquarée.
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. 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.
The Berlin traffic information center tweeted that Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse, where the hotel with the aquarium is located, was closed. "There is a lot of water on the road. So far, the cause is still unclear." The place is very close to the Alexanderplatz in Berlin with the TV Tower.
Videos of suspected hotel guests are circulating online, apparently showing the burst large aquarium:
A spokesman for the fire brigade told the dpa that it would be checked whether people were injured. The aquarium had burst for an initially unknown reason. Water ran onto Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse. It must also be checked whether the underground car park is affected.
Berlin's governing mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) thanked the emergency services at Sea Life. "Bad news from the bursting aquarium at Berlin Cathedral," she wrote on Twitter. "I would like to thank the emergency services for their commitment and I wish the injured a speedy recovery."
In the building complex called DomAquarée there is the large aquarium Sea Life and the so-called AquaDom with 1500 tropical fish, a well-known attraction in Berlin for many tourists. As stated on the DomAquarée website, the AquaDom is the "largest free-standing cylindrical aquarium in the world" and was extensively modernized by summer 2020.
