Part of a hotel in a winemaking town on the Mosel River in western Germany collapsed, leaving two people dead and three others trapped in the wreckage, authorities said on Wednesday. Fourteen people were in the hotel in Kroev when one story of the building collapsed at about 11pm 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, reports the AP, and a man and a woman were killed. The hotel guests at the time of the collapse were largely German, apart from a Dutch family.
Rescuers were able to contact some of them by cellphone. But getting to them proved to be 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. "There was no option (to use) stairs, house entrances, doors or windows, because they were simply no longer there," Teusch said. Among the four people rescued Wednesday morning was a 2-year-old child pulled out unharmed and the child's mother, who was rescued with minor injuries. The child's father was among three people still trapped, but Teusch said there is hope that he will be rescued soon, too.
The original hotel building is believed to date back to the 17th century, but additional stories were added around 1980, Teusch said. He added that building work had taken place on Tuesday, but it wasn't clear whether there was any link between that and the collapse. 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.
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