Cologne (Germany):
The Biggest City Archive of central Europe north side the Alps collapsed yesterday.
At 02:00pm a big rumble and crying workers in front of the City Archive in the centre of Cologne alert the working people inside the building, so that theycan flee. After leaving, the four levels building collapsed completely.
After arriving of the first fire units the complete building lying on the street in front of the former Archive. Two adjoin houses of the City Archive collapsed partial.
At the beginning 9 People were missed, but 7 of them were found outside this area in the following hours by the police and fire departments. Today only two people, an old couple and eventually a car with two people that drove in front of the building at the moment of the collapse were missed.
The Cologne Fire Department was with 280 Fire Fighters, Paramedics, Urban Search and Rescue Teams, Rescue dogs and two Helicopters on the scene. The city fire station is only two blocks away.
The cause of the collapse was most likely underground works. The local transportation company were building a new subway line to connecting the older central district with the central station.
In September 2004 a steeple 200 meters away from the archive become subsidence slope in cause of the underground works. It needs 1.000.000 Euro to repositioning the steeple.
The damage sum can’t be numeralize today in cause of the loss of the unplayable documents, books, pictures and writings of the last 1000 years of Colognes and the Rhineland history.
All that happens after a big fire alert in the morning at 10:00 am at the east side of cologne.

See CNN News:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/03/03/germany.cologne.building.collapse/index.html

See pictures at the local newspaper at:
http://www.ksta.de/html/fotolines/1236027626718/rahmen.shtml?20