Rescue workers searched into the early hours of Tuesday for at least 20 people feared trapped in the wreckage of an ice rink in Bavaria after the building’s roof collapsed following heavy snowfall. Eleven people were confirmed dead, according to television news reports.
At least four children were among the victims of the collapse, which happened at 4pm local time on a school holiday on Monday. Recovery efforts were initially hampered by heavy snow in and around the town of Bad Reichenhall, in Germany’s south-eastern corner, and helpers were called in from neighbouring Austria.
Workers with dogs were able to comb the building only several hours after the accident, once the remains of the roof were stabilised using cranes.
Between 30 and 35 people were injured, 19 of whom were taken to hospitals, police director Hubertus Andrae said.
Andrae said early on Tuesday that more people had been located inside and were believed to be dead, but that they were buried under debris and could not immediately be recovered. He did not give further details.
Still, officials clung to hope after a six-year-old girl was rescued with no major injuries more than five hours after the collapse.
”There is still a chance that we can rescue living people from the rubble,” local fire-service chief Rudi Zeis said on Monday night.
Rescue officials, however, expressed concern that anyone still trapped between debris and the ice would risk hypothermia.
Authorities said families with children had been in the hall at the time of the accident. Among the confirmed fatalities were a 13-year-old boy, and two girls ages seven and eight, one of whom was killed along with her mother. A 12-year-old boy who was revived at the scene later died at a hospital.
Police and prosecutors were investigating the accident.
Fire-service officials initially said the flat roof, the wreckage of which pointed up from the centre of the 1970s building at an angle, appeared to have collapsed under the weight of snow.
An official with the town’s ice-hockey club said he had been told by town authorities half an hour before the accident that a regular practice session for youth players was cancelled because there was a risk of the facility collapsing.
However, ”apparently the public skating was still continuing”, Thomas Rumpeltes said.
Local officials said there had been a roughly 20cm layer of snow on the roof.
Mayor Wolfgang Heitmeier said the weight of the snow had been measured at midday and that it had been well below the point at which the hall would have had to be closed.
Heitmeier told reporters that, following heavy snowfall in the afternoon, there had been some concern that those levels could be reached on Tuesday, and the planned evening training was cancelled as a precaution. The snow was to have been shovelled off on Tuesday morning.
However, he said officials did not see any danger on Monday ”because the levels were significantly below the limit”.
Bavarian broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk reported that a supervisor had ordered the last skaters off the ice seconds before the collapse. It also said loud creaking had been heard just before the accident.
The skating rink measured 60m by 30m. The building, with large glass windows around its sides, was attached to a municipal swimming pool and tennis court.
The town of about 15 000 people is on the border with Austria and about 10km from the city of Salzburg.
Bavarian Governor Edmund Stoiber, who planned to visit the scene on Tuesday, said he was ”deeply shaken” by the news of the accident. — Sapa-AP