Shocked residents of this small town in the German Alps were caught between anger and mourning on Tuesday as they surveyed the collapsed roof of the local ice rink where at least 11 people, most of them children, were killed.
Kurt Niedermayr, a retired man who lives next door to the rink, was not alone in wondering why it was not immediately closed after concerns about the weight of the snow were expressed on Monday.
Members of a youth ice hockey club had been warned around 90 minutes before the roof collapsed that their training session at the rink had been cancelled and that the roof was due to be cleared of snow.
Yet other skaters were still in the building at the fateful moment.
”I cannot understand why they decided that there was a danger of the roof collapsing but did not immediately clear people out of the building,” Niedermayr said, tears welling up in his eyes.
Having heard the crash as the roof caved in, he joined other residents in rushing to the scene.
He said he sensed immediately that it was already too late for the predominantly young skaters crushed to death under the weight of the metal and concrete as they enjoyed the final days of the Christmas school holidays.
”There was not much more we could do,” he said.
Another resident, Sigrid Schmidt, said she had been concerned about the state of the rink’s roof for some time.
”I didn’t go skating last year because of the roof,” she said, describing how last summer she had seen buckets placed around the rink to catch rainwater dripping through cracks.
The local newspaper reported that a member of staff at the rink had recently heard grinding noises coming from the roof and had asked the local authorities what action to take.
A town resident, who said he was a former construction engineer but asked not to be named, blamed the local authorities for the roof’s collapse.
”Why was it not evacuated there and then?” he asked.
The mayor of Bad Reichenhall, Wolfgang Heitmeier, rejected accusations of negligence, saying the roof had been inspected late on Monday morning to determine whether it could withstand the weight of the snow.
The amount of snow was far below levels normally considered dangerous, he told reporters.
Other residents vented their anger on a local internet forum, asking why — in a mountainous region affected by heavy snow every year — the roof was not strong enough to withstand the weight.
One unnamed person wrote: ”I regret what has happened, but I hope those responsible for this mess will be mercilessly brought to justice.”
The collapsed roof was clearly visible on Tuesday as a host of diggers worked to move the rubble while around 300 rescuers toiled at the scene, battling against the freezing temperatures.
Groups of firemen trudged through the snow, carrying away sections of the roof.
Then, shortly after midday, television pictures showed a body, covered with a black sheet, being carried from the rubble on a stretcher.
Rescue efforts were later temporarily suspended to allow debris to be cleared. The death toll looked likely to climb to 15 after four people described as ”lifeless” by rescuers were spotted among the wreckage.
Peter Volk, the coordinator from the privately-run Maltese Association rescue service, described a harrowing scene as his men spent spent 11 hours desperately trying to locate survivors.
”The mental burden was particularly heavy. We had to comfort parents whose children were buried alive.
”Most of those buried in the rubble were children or young people,” Volk said.
Werner Wichmann (45) was struggling to come to terms with the scene of horror at a place where he spent many happy moments as a child.
”It’s just inexplicable that such a thing could happen. When I was a boy, I learned to skate here.” – AFP
