Search continues after ice rink roof collapse kills 11

Rescuers dug with heavy equipment, shovels and their hands in freezing weather today to find people feared trapped following a roof collapse at a Bavarian skating rink that killed at least 11 people, including six children.

Rescue workers recovered two more bodies just past noon (11am Irish time), more than 20 hours after the accident, slowly carrying a stretcher covered with a white cloth out of the wreckage. Several more people were missing.

Fire official Rudi Zeif said “plenty of hope” remained, though he denied earlier reports knocking sounds had been heard from the wreckage.

Four people were still missing after the accident in the town of Bad Reichenhall, in Germany’s south-eastern corner, police and rescue officials said at a news conference.

Six children were among those killed in the collapse, which occurred at 4pm (3pm Irish time) yesterday while about 50 people were inside the rink. Recovery efforts were hampered by continuing heavy snow in the area, and help was called in from neighbouring Austria.

Workers with dogs were able to comb the building only several hours after the accident, once the remains of the roof were stabilised. Heavy snowfall clogged roads and delayed the arrival of heavy equipment used to move wreckage.

Police said 18 people were injured – three of them seriously – and were taken to nearby hospitals. Another 16 people escaped without injury, they said. Some 500 rescue workers were at the scene early today.

Police spokesman Franz Sommerauer said rescue crews had gained access to about half the hall by early today. They were trying to remove the largest chunks of debris with the help of six cranes, but had to use their hands to remove metal and concrete debris where they feared victims might be.

Officials clung on to hope of finding survivors after a six-year-old girl was rescued with no major injuries more than five hours after the collapse. Rescue officials, however, expressed concern that anyone still trapped between the debris and the ice would risk hypothermia.

Authorities said families with children had been in the hall at the time of the accident. Among the confirmed fatalities were a 13-year-old boy, and two girls ages seven and eight, one of whom was killed along with her mother. A 12-year-old boy who was rescued at the scene later died at a hospital.

Police and prosecutors were investigating the accident.

Fire service officials initially said the flat roof, the wreckage of which pointed up from the centre of the 1970s building at an angle, appeared to have collapsed under the weight of snow.

An official with the town’s ice hockey club said he had been told by town authorities 30 minutes before the accident that a regular practice session for youth players was cancelled because there was a risk of the facility collapsing.

However, “apparently the public skating was still continuing,” Thomas Rumpeltes said.

Local officials said there had been a roughly 20-centimetre layer of snow on the roof.

Mayor Wolfgang Heitmeier said the weight of the snow had been measured at midday and that it was well below the point at which the hall would have had to be closed.

Heitmeier told reporters that, following heavy snowfall in the afternoon, there had been some concern that those levels could be reached today, and the planned evening training was cancelled as a precaution. The snow was to have been shovelled off this morning.

However, he said officials did not see any danger yesterday “because the levels were significantly below the limit.”

Bavarian broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk reported that a supervisor had ordered the last skaters off the ice seconds before the collapse. It also said loud creaking had been heard just before the accident.

The building, with large glass windows around its sides, was attached to a municipal swimming pool and tennis court.

Bad Reichenhall, a town of some 15,000 people, is on the border with Austria and about six miles from the city of Salzburg.