Skip to content

1 person dead and 8 believed trapped after part of a hotel on Germany's Mosel River collapses

1ab8cd063383ad68fb53452c5c4e9a1d20bb5595a82fa803a82a9518e80973cd
Debris are seen after the collapse of a hotel in Kroev, Germany Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. (Christian Schulz/Foto Hosser/dpa via AP)

BERLIN (AP) — Part of a hotel in a winegrowing town on the Mosel River in western Germany has collapsed, leaving one person dead and another eight believed to be trapped in the wreckage, police said Wednesday.

Fourteen people were in the hotel in Kroev when one story of the building collapsed at about 11 p.m. Tuesday. Police said five were able to get out of the building unhurt, but another nine were trapped.

By early Wednesday morning, emergency services had established that one person was dead, but hadn't yet been able to recover the body. They were in contact with some of the eight people believed still to be in the building, some of whom were seriously injured, police said in a statement.

Authorities evacuated 31 people from the area immediately around the damaged building. There was no immediate word on what caused the collapse or on the identity of the people affected.

Police said it was “an extremely demanding deployment, because emergency personnel can only enter the building with the greatest caution.” They said that some 250 emergency workers, including drone specialists, were at the scene, as well as rescue dogs.

Kroev is located on a picturesque section of the Mosel near the larger resort town of Traben-Trarbach. It has about 2,200 inhabitants.

The Associated Press

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks