Table of Contents
- What Happened?
- Why Did the Hotel Collapse?
- How Many People Are Affected?
- How is the Rescue Operation Progressing?
- What Does This Incident Mean for the Region?
- Dead, seriously injured, spills <unk> what is known about the hotel crash
Shock in Rhineland-Palatinate: Late Tuesday evening, a hotel in the municipality of Kröv partially collapses. Neighbors alert the police and rescue services. However, the damage is already done. An entire floor is no longer habitable, numerous people trapped in the rubble. Two of them do not survive the incident. Rescue services take hours to free the first people.
How could all this happen? An overview of the current situation:
What Happened?
Late Tuesday evening around 11 pm, the hotel in the Verbandsgemeinde Traben-Trarbach collapsed. Residents informed the police.
Images from the disaster site show the rubble of the multi-story timber-framed house in the district of Bernkastel-Wittlich in Rhineland-Palatinate. The house has literally collapsed in on itself. Of the original three floors, only two remain.
Why Did the Hotel Collapse?
This is still unclear. Neither the police nor the fire department have made any statements on this. "What can be said is that there were construction works on the building yesterday," said the fire and disaster protection inspector of the Bernkastel-Wittlich district, Jörg Teusch. Whether these were in a causal connection with the collapse will have to be shown by expert opinions and investigations.
The building's basic substance dates back to the 17th century. "Around 1980, two and a half additional stories were added to the ground floor." At that time, a supporting structure with hollow-core slabs was built. "That's probably where the weak point was that led to the first floor collapsing completely." Expert opinions will now have to show whether something in the substructure of the old building structure failed.
How Many People Are Affected?
When the hotel collapsed, there were 14 people in the building, according to police reports. Five were able to escape unharmed and are now being cared for by the emergency services and crisis interventionists. The rest were buried – including a two-year-old child and its mother, the local police in Trier reported. Some of them are severely injured. By Wednesday afternoon, five people had been rescued. There is no initial information about their condition.
Two people died in the incident. They are a woman over 60 years old and a man whose age has not yet been specified. The woman's body has already been recovered, but the man has only been located so far, according to the incident commander Jörg Teusch. The two deceased presumably died directly in the collapse of the building.
This means that two people are still trapped, the police reported. They are injured to varying degrees and contact has been established with them.
How is the Rescue Operation Progressing?
Around 250 helpers from the fire department and the Technical Relief Agency (THW), among others, are on site – including special forces and a search and rescue dog unit. The disaster site is also being examined using drones.
"Due to the damage, this is an extremely challenging operation, as the emergency services can only enter the building with the utmost caution," it said in a police statement. As SWR reports, the fire department could not initially enter the building due to the risk of imminent collapse. Incident commander Teusch compared the building structure to a house of cards.
The spokesperson of the Technical Operations Management of the Bernkastel-Wittlich district, Gregor Zehe, stated: "The recovery operation is incredibly challenging." Given the unstable situation, one must carefully consider each step taken. The Technical Relief Agency has set up measuring points near the hotel to monitor any movement in the building or the possibility of entering it.
What does this incident mean for the region?
The danger is not yet over: The emergency services fear that further parts of the hotel may collapse and damage adjacent buildings. Therefore, neighboring houses have been evacuated. So far, 31 residents have had to leave their homes.
The lack of clear information from the police or fire department about the cause of the hotel's collapse leaves many questioning the 'Reason behind the Power of Operation' to stabilize and safely remove the remaining debris. Despite the challenging conditions, the resilience of the rescue services, including the fire department and the Technical Relief Agency, is evident in their dedication to 'Power of Operation', continuing to work tirelessly to rescue the remaining trapped individuals.
