If the aquarium is inside, how could freezing temperatures cause a crack?
Welcome to the new improved Green Germany with fewer and fewer nasty coal plants. Lower your thermostats as far as possible. Do it for mudder erf. People will die this winter in Germany from lack of electricity/heat is the prediction. The “winter of death” that Biden predicted is what he has in mind for us as well.
Lack of fossil fuels, and limitations on their use could have caused a reduction in heating of the building.
That’s so obvious, but it got past both the reporter and the editor.
Here is a likely explanation from the Zero Comment section.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/picture-devastation-worlds-largest-cylindrical-aquarium-bursts-1500-tropical-fish-inside
“Haus-Targaryen
11 hours ago
I am directly involved in the legal cleanup of this and can provide a little more detail as to what actually happened (Tyler, reach out to me you have my email if you'd like to verify my identity here).
The city of Berlin required the hotel reduce the ambient temperature of the hotel lobby to save on energy due to sanctions. Its been abnormally cold in Berlin the past few nights dipping down to -11°C last night and -12°C the night before that. The water is heated to a constant temperature above 30°C for many of the fish species that lived in the tank.
As the nights got colder and colder, the lower ambient temperature of the air surrounding the tank likely started causing deformations and hairline cracks in the bottom of the tank where the pressure is the greatest. Last night at -11° caused the ambient temperature to drop too low given the reduced heating in the lobby and is what it looks like caused the “sudden unintentional disassembly”/catastrophic failure of the tank.
Everyone is already lawyering up including the city, the HVAC manufacturer, tank manufacturer, HVAC installer, building engineer, hotel - the litigation is going to be fun to watch and work on.
What isn't covered in the news is damage. The tank in 2003 cost €13 million. Today its orders of magnitude more expensive to replace, some of the fish were quite exotic and are expensive losses in and of themselves. Then you have the damage to the hotel lobby and façade, electrical components of the building in the three-story basement are also effected and large amounts of water went into the parking garage where many vehicles are parked not only from the hotel and offices but from an attached apartment complex to the hotel.
Losses are tens of millions. All because the city made the hotel turn down the heat. I imagine someone will be blaming Putin before too long.
If you look at the lobby itself - the ceiling is 100% glass - its dual-paned with the cavity having a vacuum pulled - so its good as a thermal barrier, but its also the size of a football field and the lobby definitely cools down unless heat is applied from below and traps itself in the ceiling.
When temperatures are this cold, the lobby needed to be heated to a constant temperature and held there which would be in conformity with the “Gutachten” the Tank has.”
It looks like the City of Berlin is culpable due to cost cutting measures.
The tank contained water that contained tropical fish. The water was not frozen and the tropical fish were alve. The low temperature outside was not al fault.
There is no material that is acrylic glass. It is either acrylic aka plexiglas or glass. At 25 meters deep, the water pressure at the bottom was quite large. I suspect the material holding the plexiglas ruptured rather than the plastic.