UPDATE: Read about just how bad this disaster was in the March 4, 2009 article titled “Archive Collapse Disaster for Historians” in Spiegel Online.
The Cologne City Archive in Germany collapsed today. It seems that all the employees are safe. However a married couple who lived in the adjacent building are missing. The collapse brought down a 70-metre long facade of houses (the archive making up 30 metres with the other 40 metres composed of the adjacent buildings). The employees were able to get out because they heard a crack on the upper floors of the building, followed by a loud noise, allowing them to flee the building.
This city archives houses 65,000 original documents dating from the year 922 as well as 104,000 maps, 50,000 posters, and 500,000 photos as well as films and items left to the city by figures like composer Jacques Offenbach and Nobel Prize-winning author Heinrich Boell.
The Cologne city archive was the most richest archive north of the Alps and has has been in use as an archive since 1971.
In looking at the pictures of the collapsed building, I’d say that not much is going to be saved… This is a tremendous historical loss.
There are all kinds of news about the collapse to be found on the web, including:
Reuters.uk – Cologne Building Collapses
The AP – Cologne building collapses
CNN – Collapsed Building traps 3 in Germany
Keep in mind that the story is still developing, so the news is contradictory.
I’m sure this is a terrible loss for the City of Cologne, but having seen first-hand how well the country’s architectural and cultural treasures were restored after the destruction of World War II, I’ll bet we’ll be surprised at just how much is recovered.