Admin I Friday, August 25, 2023
BERLIN – The bursting of a massive cylindrical aquarium in Berlin last year – spilling around 1,500 exotic fish, 1 million litres of water and hundreds of debris fragments into the lobby of the Radisson Blu hotel – was not due to deliberate damage, experts say.
“The expert’s report sees no evidence of wilful deliberate external influence,” the owner of the hotel Union Investment, which commissioned the report, said on Friday.
Further results will be released in October.
When the report is completed, it will be made available to the public prosecutor’s office, which is investigating for negligent bodily harm after two people were slightly injured in the accident.
The 16-metre-high AquaDom aquarium in the hotel near central Berlin’s Alexanderplatz square ruptured in the early hours of December 16. The hotel lobby was flooded and water and fish streamed into the street.
At least six other shops in the building complex were damaged in the disaster that made international headlines.
The tank was described as the largest free-standing cylindrical aquarium in the world.
Many possible reasons were given for the accident: faulty construction, faulty material, material fatigue, cracks on the surface, and temperature fluctuations.
For the expert report, a team of engineers tried to reassemble the more than 700 broken pieces in a warehouse in Brandenburg as faithfully as possible. The cause of the damage also plays a role in the calculation of costs by the insurance company.
