vailian

This rather forbidding-looking building is the Cologne City Archives. It houses local records and documents of historical interest going back to the 13th century. I ride my bicycle past it every day at least once, and the high school my boys graduated from is on the other side of the street. 

The city of Cologne has been building a new stretch of subway system under this street, which by the way was the old Roman road from Cologne to Bonn-- the street has been a construction site for the last ten years and we have all been hoping the new subway line (which is very short and seems to only serve to enrich some local construction companies) would be finished on schedule next year. 

Well, forget that. Last Tuesday the sandy wet earth under the City Archive building poured into the subway trench without warning, and within minutes the building collapsed completely.

It is a tragedy because there were thousands of priceless and irreplaceable documents stored here. It is a tragedy because the high school (on the right in the picture) is going to have to be torn down (along with several old apartment buildings). 

The subway construction has been halted, because there are fears that the safety of the whole route is endangered.  And it has emerged that the Archives were not insured-- the building was considered too safe.

But it is a miracle because only one person died (a baker's apprentice, who was asleep in a neighboring building that was in the path of the collapsing building). If it had happened even a half an hour earlier, the street would have been full of students going home from school. (One of my students included). 

And if it had happened a week earlier, the death toll could have been enormous-- the local Mardi Gras parade goes right by here and there were hundreds of people lining the street.

We are all grateful that there were no more deaths or injuries. But it is going to have an effect on my orchestra, because we have been planning to have the opera house renovated starting next year (it has not been repaired since it was built in 1958) but it now looks like the city cannot afford to do it. 

# posted by vailian : 12:55 AM