Search goes on at collapsed ice rink
Rescue workers with dogs resumed their search today for four people still missing after the roof of a skating rink collapsed in southern Germany.
The rescue crews were able to enter the building in the Alpine spa town of Bad Reichenhall a little before 3am Irish time.
Crews had been forced to suspend their work yesterday afternoon because of fears that the wrecked structure could collapse further.
Hopes were fading of finding survivors as the rescue effort continued through a second night of snow and freezing temperatures.
Eleven people, including six children, have been confirmed dead following the accident on Monday afternoon. A 40-year-old woman and three children aged 12 to 16 were still believed to be trapped today.
The roof collapse, which came after heavy snowfall, occurred when about 50 people were inside, including many children on their Christmas holidays.
Rescue efforts were halted yesterday after one of the collapsed ceiling crossbeams shifted and put pressure on a remaining wall, leading to fears that the ruined and steeply tilted roof could collapse further.
Special cranes were brought in to clear the way, and workers spent the night tearing away pieces of the facade and the remains of the roof. By early today, they had cleared enough debris to make two-fifths of the skating rink accessible.
Fire official Rudi Zeif pledged that “we will continue the search until we have rescued or recovered all the missing”.
Searchers were “80% sure” of the location of one missing person, he said. Asked if they could still be alive, he said earthquake victims had survived for several days.
Pumping warm air into the area was considered, but ruled out because it could melt snow, leaving any survivors wet and colder than before. Rescuers hoped the snow could produce an “igloo effect” that might create relatively warm pockets of air.
Rescuers using dogs, shovels and their hands found a five-year-old girl with only minor injuries late on Monday, but had found no one alive and heard no calls for help since then.
Several hundred people gathered yesterday for a candlelight vigil at the local town hall, and church bells pealed for 20 minutes.
Prosecutors launched an investigation for possible negligence, an automatic step after a fatal accident.
All the victims came from the area around Bad Reichenhall, a town of 15,000 inhabitants on the Austrian border. People in the town questioned why a public building could not withstand a heavy but predictable snowfall.
Pensioner Erna Schweiger-Nolte said as she stood outside the police cordon: “There’s something rotten about this. We’ve had a lot more snow than this before. The politicians say, ’save, save, save,’ but it shouldn’t be on the wrong things.”
She said it was “well known” that the building, erected in 1972, was in poor shape and leaking.
Experts suggested a structural flaw was a more likely cause than the heavy snow that fell on Monday.
Suspicions were fuelled by news that an official with the town’s ice hockey club said local authorities told him 30 minutes before the accident that a regular practice session for youth players later in the day was cancelled because there was a risk of collapse.
Local officials said there had been a roughly 8-inch layer of snow on the roof, which was well within the building’s safety margin.
Nonetheless, town officials had planned to close it after the end of the day’s public skating because the snow was continuing.
AP Police said later that another body had been recovered from the wreckage, raising the death toll to 12.
