Collapse and aftermath
The cylindrical tank burst at 5:43 am local time (4:43 am GMT) on 16 December 2022, sending approximately 1 e6L of water together with the tank's 1,500 fish into the hotel lobby and adjacent street. Sandra Weeser, a member of Germany's Bundestag staying at the hotel at the time, described awakening to "a kind of shock wave".[13]
Berlin's Technisches Hilfswerk (THW) rescue team mounted a full-scale deployment,[14] completing operations 12 hours later — with the hotel's lobby and atrium remaining devastated, described by onlookers as resembling a battlefield.
The majority of the 1,500 fish were killed[15] and two people were hospitalized with injuries. Officials noted the collapse could easily have taken several lives had it taken place during the hotel's busier operational hours.[14][16][17]
Detected by local seismographs, the collapse sent the water out of the hotel lobby and into nearby storm drains, but not before damaging several nearby businesses, including a neighboring Lindt chocolate shop[14] and the basement of the adjacent DDR Museum, the latter of which reopened three and a half months later.[18][19] An associated power loss threatened hundreds of smaller fish in the facility's breeding tanks, which were ultimately rescued.[15][20]
With no suspicion of foul play, and prior to a formal investigation, suspected causes included material fatigue,[21] exacerbated by the difference between Berlin's very low air temperature (-9 C that night), and the tank's water temperature (26 C).[22]
On 24 October 2023, prosecutors closed the investigation into the rupture after experts failed to determine a conclusive cause.[23]
The hotel reopened after two years on 12 February 2025, with a 24 m vertical garden consisting of about 2,000 plants of 22 species replacing the aquarium.[24][2]
