Fears for missing three after building collapse in Germany
THREE people are feared missing after a six-storey city archive building collapsed in a pile of rubble in the western German city of Cologne.
The building collapsed about 2pm local time on Tuesday, ripping open and dragging down parts of two adjacent buildings that contained apartments and an amusement arcade. A huge cloud of dust enveloped the site.
Alerted by rumbling sounds that preceded the collapse, all staff and visitors at the archive were able to get out in time without injuries.
The six-storey city archive building in Cologne, which contained documents going back centuries, lies in ruins. Photo: Reuters
Fire department director Stephan Neuhoff said rescuers needed to stabilise the area before moving into the rubble to determine whether anyone was trapped.
Emergency workers evacuated buildings in a 150-metre radius. A nearby retirement home with 76 residents was evacuated for fear that a crane could collapse on it.
There was no immediate word on the condition of the archive's contents, but a regional government official, Lutz Lienenkaemper, promised help in salvaging them.
Cologne has archival material going back centuries, including manuscripts by communist pioneers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and documents related to German writer Heinrich Boell.
It was not immediately clear what caused the building to collapse.
Work was being done on a new subway line under the street on which the building stood. The roof of the subway construction site also collapsed on Tuesday, but officials said they did not believe anyone there was trapped.
Subway project leader Rolf Papst said there had been no major tunnelling work done in the past 30 days.
"I am not aware of any work at the moment that might have caused this," said Gudrun Meyer, a spokeswoman for the subway company.