Hotel collapses in Germany leaving at least two dead

Part of a hotel in a western German town has collapsed, leaving two people dead and several others trapped in the wreckage, authorities said on Wednesday.

Fourteen people were in the hotel in Kröv when one story of the building collapsed at about 11 pm CET on Tuesday. Police said five were able to get out of the building unhurt because they weren’t in the part that collapsed, but others were trapped.

A rescue operation is ongoing, but reaching them is proving difficult because the collapse of one story left two ceilings lying on top of each other, according to Joerg Teusch, fire and disaster protection inspector for the Bernkastel-Wittlich district.

“We have to proceed with caution because the entire building structure is like a house of cards. If we pull on the wrong card, this building is sure to collapse,” he said.

Among those saved was a 2-year-old child pulled out unharmed and the child’s mother, who was rescued with minor injuries. The child’s father is still trapped, but Teusch said there is hope that he will be rescued soon as well.

“We all had tears in our eyes and I still feel the same now. The whole story has a very emotional component, because when we arrived, when we looked at the building, it looked like we weren’t taking anyone out,” he said at a news conference Wednesday.

Teusch said the cause of the structural collapse hasn’t yet been determined.

Regional public broadcaster SWR said that witnesses reported hearing a bang and seeing a large cloud of dust at the time of the collapse.

“There was no option (to use) stairs, house entrances, doors or windows, because they were simply no longer there,” Teusch said.

Authorities evacuated 31 people from the area immediately around the damaged building.

Kröv is a municipality of about 2,200 residents situated on a picturesque section of the river Moselle near the larger resort town of Traben-Trarbach.