Cologne DK City Archive Building Collapse

9 people currently trapped in the city archives… the Cologne historical archive building. (Köln Archiv). Apparently, subway construction imploded the building, which took out several others around it… RTL Television has some disturbing pictures. Waiting for twitters to come in. At least 3 buildings collapsed, 2 construction workers missing… “the future of the city’s past is grim”. Along with the human loss, there is a great historical loss also: see the Spiegel article link at the bottom.

videos of the collapse:

RTL video:

The Köln Archiv disaster, as being reported on Spiegel Online, has the interesting distinction of being “The city where the future of the city’s past is grim”… but not due to the historic efforts of heros, but rather the heroic efforts of historians:

Cologne’s archives are one of the only collections in Germany to have survived World War II completely intact. Because of Cologne’s long history, much of its heritage was stored locally rather than in a state archive.

On Tuesday night and Wednesday, archivists worked alongside firefighters and rescue personnel. According to an archivist and historian with firsthand knowledge of the situation, volunteers have already pulled close to 9,000 documents out of the building’s basement and the offices of archive employees. [ full article ]