2024-08-14 10:40:37
One last survivor was rescued from the rubble of the collapsed hotel in Kröv. Two people died in the accident.
It is a small miracle: After the collapse of a hotel in Kröv on the Moselle, the last surviving person has been rescued from the rubble. The woman endured more than 24 hours under the rubble – and was carried out of the collapsed hotel late on Wednesday evening to applause.
According to the police, the emergency services had previously used heavy equipment from a specialist company to get to the woman. They had “spoken contact” with her. According to a fire department spokesman, the woman was trapped between concrete slabs in a crouched position. She was given something to drink and food in the form of porridge. Air was pumped into the building via large orange pipes.
The small hotel in Kröv on the Moselle has literally collapsed. One floor has disappeared, windows, beams and gables have shifted. Several holiday guests were in the hotel at the time of the accident late on Tuesday evening. After a rescue operation lasting several hours, the sad news came: a woman and a man were killed in the rubble. One of the two fatalities was also recovered on Wednesday. She was a woman, a police spokeswoman said.
In addition to the woman, who was born in 1961 according to the operations management, a man also died in the accident. According to the police spokeswoman, he is still lying in the rubble. The recovery of his body would “probably not happen” in the evening, it was said. Based on the current status, the police strongly believe that the dead man is the hotel owner.
Late on Tuesday evening, around 11 p.m., parts of the hotel collapsed. According to the police, residents called the emergency services. At the time of the collapse, 14 people were in the hotel. Five were rescued relatively quickly because they were in “uninvolved parts of the building,” explained Jörg Teusch, fire and disaster control inspector for the Bernkastel-Wittlich district. Nine other people were initially trapped under the rubble – the survivors were rescued during the course of the day.
During the rescue operation, there was another small miracle for a family: Of the seven, some seriously injured, four were rescued in the morning – including a two-year-old child. When the child was carried out of the house in a child’s sleeping bag after hours of fear, many people on site became emotional. “I have never been so happy to see a stranger’s child. We all had tears in our eyes,” said Jörg Teusch, fire and disaster protection inspector for the Bernkastel-Wittlich district.
The mother of the small child is also among those rescued. The father was initially trapped and seriously injured. He was finally rescued from the rubble around midday. Beforehand, operations manager Teusch had said: “If we manage to reunite the family today, it will be a balm for the soul.” The family comes from the Netherlands.
At first, the situation looked worse. “We assumed that everyone lying in between was dead,” said Teusch. And yet some people in the hotel survived for hours, thanks in part to the remaining hollow spaces. “The rooms that remain can only be described as a miracle,” said Teusch.
The rescue operation was difficult from the start because the building was unstable and initially moved several centimeters. The entire structure of the building resembled a house of cards, said Teusch. “If you pull the wrong card, the building will definitely collapse.” This meant a big risk for the rescue workers – they had to be careful.