Dramatic fire happened last night at Germany Europa Park. The fire started early on Saturday evening in a storage building, and then moved to engulf and destroy the "Pirates of Batavia" boat ride. Authorities have evacuated the Europa-Park amusement park in southwest Germany, after a fire broke out at the theme park.
"The park has been completely cleared," a police spokesman said. There were about 25,000 people at the theme park when the fire started, according to police estimates.
It has been confirmed by authorities that the blaze started in a warehouse before spreading to another attraction. From there it spread further, with flames rapidly leaping to numerous other attractions. There were almost 500 operational forces in use overall. They also confirmed there are no injured visitors.
"The fire is still expanding quickly," a local fire department employee said. We still don't have the situation under control." Nobody was hurt in the mass evacuation but seven firefighters were injured while trying to put out the blaze at Europa-Park, in the south western town of Rust.
Some 250 firefighters tackled the blaze, finally managing to extinguish it on Sunday morning. Authorities were battling to prevent the blaze from spreading to other attractions at the park in the small town of Rust, near the French border.
Most of the park has now reopened. However, parts of the Dutch and Scandinavian-themed areas have been extensively damaged and remain closed.
Europa-Park's chief executive Michael Mack said on Twitter that it had been a "sad day" for the park. He thanked emergency services and expressed his relief that none of the park's customers had been injured. Thousands of people escaped from the park safely.
It is not known what caused the fire, and firefighters remain at the park to make sure the fire does not start up again.
If you plan to go to Europa Park in the next weeks expect to have some of the "lands" closed, and this probably for several weeks. The "Pirates of Batavia" ride who was destroyed last night was Europa Park "Pirates of Caribbean", for those of you who never did the ride, here is a 4K video of it.
1 comment:
What a nightmarish sight! Fortunately, no one died. A fire of this scale could have been more disastrous.
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