Aquadom disaster went beyond imagination
Acrylic glass is actually considered to be very strong and stable. But a year ago, a giant 16-meter-high aquarium in Berlin shattered. Even today, not all the damage has been repaired. Meanwhile, an even larger aquarium is being planned elsewhere in Berlin.
Around one million liters of water poured into a hotel and the surrounding streets in Berlin's city centre a year ago. It came as a shock to many when the 16-metre-high giant aquarium broke into hundreds of pieces on 16 December 2022 and thousands of fish died. Two people were slightly injured and numerous stores in the building complex were damaged by the masses of water.
The extent of the damage can still be seen a year after the disaster. Many stores in the building complex are closed and separated by fences. On one day in December, workmen were out and about in the alleyway where the fragments, some weighing several tons, were collected. The spokesman for the building owner, Fabian Hellbusch, said that most of the stores should reopen by next spring. The hotel is still closed.
"Imagining a disaster like the sudden bursting of the large aquarium in the lobby of our Berlin hotels would have required a special kind of imagination a year ago," said Hellbusch. "We are happy and grateful that, all in all, it turned out very well and that we managed to repair the damage very quickly." What remains is the fond memory of the Aquadom, which has brought great joy to many people over the years.
Three damage hypotheses
For some, a bitter taste may remain, as the cause of the accident could not be definitively clarified. Expert and engineer Christian Bonten presented three damage hypotheses in October. According to this, the aquarium could have burst due to the failure of an adhesive seam, due to damage during renovation or due to the plastic drying out. The expert also considered a combination of damage to be possible, but cautioned: "We have no clear evidence for the various damage hypotheses."
Like a large jigsaw puzzle, Bonten had spent months putting the pieces together and examining them. The public prosecutor's office closed its investigation in October. The authority had checked whether there were any possible persons responsible or whether someone could have acted negligently.
What remains are the huge steel supports of the aquarium, which are to remain in the hotel lobby, and the question: can a new aquarium of this size hold up? The initiators of a planned hotel with an aquarium called "Ocean Berlin" in Berlin-Lichtenberg are convinced that it can. The aquarium is scheduled to open in early 2026, as a spokeswoman for the Israeli company Coral World told Deutsche Presse-Agentur. Several tanks with a total of around ten million liters of water are planned. A selection of 3000 fish has already been made. The largest tank will reportedly hold 7.5 million liters - more than seven times as much as the Aquadom.
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The unfortunate incident at the International Berlin Aquarium, known as Aquadom, caused significant damage to the tourism industry in Berlin. Despite the ongoing repairs, plans for an even larger aquarium are being considered in the city.
Three damage hypotheses have been proposed to explain the cause of the Aquadom disaster, but no clear evidence has been found to support any of them.
Source: www.ntv.de
