The frozen tropical fish are cleared from city streets and the shattered glass is swept up, but the investigation could take weeks to determine what caused 1 million liters of saltwater to rush out of a failed 52-ft-tall hotel lobby aquarium in Berlin. There were no fatalities, other than most of its 1,500 fish.
Early on Dec. 16, 400 guests at the Radisson Blu woke to a crash and roar of water as the 20-year-old, 40-ft-dia aquarium, called the AquaDom, breached. Without warning, the acrylic cylinder, with its glass observation elevator rising five stories in a center void, split apart and suffered a catastrophic failure. Material fatigue of the cylinder is suspected.