Hundreds of people were evacuated from a nightclub in southwest Germany after a fire broke out, police said Sunday, with images from the scene showing the blaze raging on the building’s roof.
Police said the fire began around 3:45 am (0145 GMT) in the nightclub in Kehl, which is on the border with France.
The blaze went on to “spread over the whole building”, a police statement added.
Around 750 people were inside at the time and all left unassisted. Three people were treated by emergency services for stress caused by the situation.
Images published in German media showed a huge fire on the roof of the nightclub, which is located in an industrial area of the city.
The blaze is reminiscent of the fire which engulfed a bar in the early hours of New Year’s Day in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana, killing 41 people and injuring 115.
Kehl lies directly across the Rhine River from the French city of Strasbourg, and the club regularly attracts visitors from across the border.
READ ALSO: After Crans-Montana fire, Swiss to ban pyrotechnics in enclosed public spaces
Unlike in the Crans-Montana fire, in Kehl the evacuation process seems to have gone smoothly.
“All of a sudden we heard: there’s a fire! There were several announcements in German, French and English,” a reveller told the local French newspaper DNA.
The paper quoted clubbers as saying the staff “handled it really well” and that the evacuation was “very quick” with no panic.
At least 80 emergency personnel from the fire department, police, and rescue services were deployed in the early morning hours, police said.
Cause still unclear
The morning after the massive fire, the once-popular club lay in ruins, with thick plumes of smoke billowing from it. An excavator was seen tearing down walls so that firefighters could better reach the smouldering embers inside, news agency DPA reported.
An investigation has been opened into the fire, the cause of which was not immediately clear. However, investigators will only be able to enter the building once the excavation work is completed.
According to police, adjacent buildings are not at risk from the fire.
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