[EN IMAGES] A giant fish tank exploded in a hotel in Berlin

A giant fifteen-meter-tall aquarium exploded in the courtyard of a famous hotel in Berlin on Friday, spilling a million liters of water, fish and injuring two people, police and firefighters announced on Friday.

AquaDom bills itself as “the world’s largest cylindrical aquarium” on its website.

The same sources reported that its glass walls were shattered around 5:50 a.m. local time, for reasons yet to be determined.

As well as causing “incredible sea damage”, the incident left two people injured, hit by shrapnel and taken to hospital.

Located in front of the Radisson Blu Hotel, the cylindrical aquarium contained one million liters of water and around 1,500 tropical fish.

“Water and fish spilled onto the ground floor” and the hotel was evacuated, a fire department spokesman told AFP.

Hundreds of relief workers were at the scene. Police used dogs to find people under the rubble.

The aquarium was not the victim of a simple crack, “it exploded,” the spokesman noted.

Police partially closed Karl-Liebknecht street, a major artery in central Berlin, to traffic due to “high water on the road,” the capital’s transport agency said on its Twitter account.

Photos and videos circulating on social media, apparently sent by hotel residents, showed the aquarium largely destroyed, with large pieces of glass strewn about and water still leaking.

Quoted in “Bild” newspaper, Mr. According to one Christian witness, “a cracking sound woke us up”.

“My wife told me that something flew through the window. I went to see, the day before (…) the aquarium collapsed.

The aquarium, which was part of the Sea Life complex, was equipped with a glass lift that allowed visitors to see the marine life from the inside.

According to “Build,” the explosion was caused by wear and tear on equipment. AquaDom reopened last summer after a 2.5 million euro renovation, the newspaper recalled.