‘Terrible human loss avoided’ when 82ft aquarium housing 1,500 fish exploded

A “terrible human loss” was avoided when a towering aquarium burst, sending a 1 million-litre torrent of water, 1,500 exotic fish and glass cascading into a hotel lobby, the local mayor has said.

The 82ft AquaDom, which holds the Guinness World Record for being the globe’s largest free-standing cylindrical aquarium, was a tourist attraction that acted as the centrepiece inside the city’s Radisson Blu hotel.

Hundreds of fish died but only two people were injured by glass shrapnel. Officials have expressed relief at the time at which it exploded, saying the incident had the potential to have been far more serious.

Berlin mayor Franziska Giffey told broadcaster RBB that the rupture had unleashed a “veritable tsunami” of water but the early morning timing had prevented more injuries.

“If this hadn’t happened at 5.45am, but even just one hour later, then we would probably have had terrible human loss to report,” she said. “Despite all the destruction, we were still very lucky.”

Among the 80 types of fish housed in the AquaDom were blue tang and clownfish. Rescue efforts are under way to save an additional 400 to 500 smaller fish housed in aquariums underneath the lobby area.

“Now it’s about evacuating them quickly,” Almut Neumann, a city official in charge of environmental issues for Berlin’s Mitte district, told German news agency DPA. It is believed that the tanks under the lobby were not receiving the necessary oxygen for the fish to survive.

There was speculation freezing temperatures overnight caused a crack in the acrylic glass tank, which then exploded under the weight of the water.

Berlin police have said they found no evidence of a targeted attack, and are not seeking suspects following Friday’s explosion.

The force has also taken to Twitter to quash a fake account imitating the official police profile, which claimed officers were recruiting the public to aid efforts to track down suspects linked to the incident.

Berlin police said they “expressly dissociate” themselves from the fake post and have asked people not to share it.

While investigations are still under way, interior senator Iris Spranger told DPA that signs suggest the cause was “material fatigue”.

A US company that helped build the aquarium said on Saturday it was sending a team to look into the rupture of the tank.

Reynolds Polymer Technology, which says it manufactured and installed the cylinder component of the aquarium tank 20 years ago, said in a statement that “at this point, it is too early to determine the factor or factors that would produce such a failure”.

Reynolds, which says on its website that 41 of its acrylic panels were used in building the tank cylinder, said it “offers its sincere concern” to the hotel guests and workers who were affected and to those who were injured.

The company said that “we are also deeply saddened by the animals and aquatic life lost”.

Officials said on Friday that the hotel building itself was assessed to be safe.