GÖRLITZ, Germany — Rescue operations entered their second day Tuesday as search crews scrambled to locate three people missing following a catastrophic overnight building collapse in this eastern German city, just kilometers from the Polish border. Local law enforcement confirmed Monday night’s structural failure may have been triggered by an undetected gas explosion, and first responders have proceeded with extreme care at the disaster site to avoid secondary hazards from potential unaddressed gas leaks, according to reporting from Germany’s national news agency dpa.
Initial search efforts deployed specially trained search canines to detect signs of life trapped beneath the thousands of tons of rubble, but when those attempts failed to turn up any leads, crews shifted strategy around 2 a.m. on Tuesday. Heavy excavators were brought in to carefully clear large debris, while teams of workers also dug through smaller fragments by hand to avoid endangering any possible survivors. Early fears that as many as five people could be buried under the collapsed structure have since been ruled out after a full accounting of local residents and visitors, police confirmed.
One distraught relative, who told reporters he had been shopping at a nearby neighborhood supermarket when the blast occurred, said his wife and cousin had arrived in the city earlier that day for a vacation, staying at one of the building’s rental units. When he rushed back to the property after hearing the explosion, he found the multi-story structure reduced to a massive, chaotic pile of broken concrete and splintered wood. Law enforcement officials confirmed the fallen building, constructed in the historic Wilhelminian architectural style popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, housed both long-term rental apartments and short-term vacation accommodation.
Located in Germany’s far eastern state of Saxony, Görlitz is the country’s easternmost city, home to roughly 57,000 residents. Its well-preserved, centuries-old old town — which remained largely undamaged through World War II — is a major draw for tourists and a popular filming location for international film and television productions, drawing production crews from across the globe each year.