Update to my previous blog – Explosions in Teltow

As the day has continued, more information has come out.  First off, the building that exploded is part of an old industrial complex built in the 1960’s – 1970’s.  Most of the buildings from this era are gone now, and this was one of the last – and also located on the busiest street corner.  It belongs to the Biomalz (bio malt beer brewery) and also had a wire making business on a floor along with a tire (vehicle) storage/sales company inside on one of the floors as well.   Damage is expected to be several million euros.

The fire investigators have thus far not determined the cause of the 6 alarm fire.  They are stating that it wasn’t Arson, nor was it a lightening strike (we had some serious thunderstorms here a few hours before the explosion), but haven’t been able to get in to do investigations. Luckily, no one was killed. Fire Inspectors / Police have yet to determine the structural stability of the building and firefighters were still on site battling “flare ups” at 18:30PM when I left from taking the pictures below.   That makes well over 19 hours that this has been going on – and I would suspect it will go on well into the rest of the night.

As you can see from the pictures, the building is about 5 stories high.  One side of the building had an old loading dock that was steel beamed and had a concrete awning (which partially collapsed).  Between the 3rd and 4th floor, you can see that part of the concrete facaad is missing – there are several dangling window frames (and many non existant) where you can see straight into the concrete and steel construction work.  This side is where the blast occurred – it was so powerful that not only did it take out part of the concrete on the awning below – but blew out windows on the jaguar dealership (and some of the cars inside the showroom) across the street.  And – when I walked around the back of the Jaguar Dealership – I noticed that the Land Rover dealership had lost several of its back (it blasted through the Jaguar into the Land Rover) windows as well.

From what I was hearing from the gathering of gawkers who were about today – they said that apparently when the fire broke out there was enough time to evacuate the employees.  However, by the time the fire department arrived, the building was pretty well set on.  The explosion was caused due to a pair of propane tanks (maybe for cooking the beer? or for the copper wire making? not sure) that were inside.  Subsequently, the windows blew out on the floors (the pops I kept hearing) and then a couple cars burnt up (and exploded as well (the later loud booms I heard).   Apparently residents in the area were told to keep their windows shut due to the potentially caustic smoke – but I wasn’t one of them – maybe I was too far away.  I figured out today its somewhere between 500 and 800 meters (about 1/4 to 1/3 mile) from my apartment – and yes, I managed to “sleep” quite disturbed through the entire thing – AND not be wondering too much about the helicopters that were darting about as I walked the dog…..

On to the photos.  As always, click the photo to bring you to flickr, where you can see a larger size.

Five Floors Gutted

Notice the Bowed side – and the hole in between the 3rd and 4th floor – this is where the main part of the blast (propane tanks?) pushed out, dropping the concrete siding chunks onto …

the Formerly Concrete & Steel Awning over the loading dock.

The titled stuff on the left is the former concrete siding facaad between the 3rd/4th floor windows.

That material apparently then set the vehicles on fire —

and the shockwave Busted out the windows on both the Jaguar and Land Rover Dealerships (I heard it even blasted out some of the showroom car windows but didn’t see any cars with broken glass…).As that continued, the fire started to

blow out windows on the other side of the building (firefighters checking for hot spots here).

It burned so hot that it

melted the paint off the walls (and the cars above);

Turned metal blinds twisted and rusty,

Might have changed the color of what few windows it did not blow out (some are pink on the 3rd/4th floor here),and

Left firefighters battling the flames for hours – even after the majority was put out.

Kudos to the firemen who actually were working hard on this and now you see why it was so impressive that people weren’t killed.