Three elderly patients killed after horror blaze broke out at German hospital - as panicked people 'cried for help from windows'
Three patients were killed and many people were injured, two of them critically, in a fire that broke out overnight at a hospital in the German city of Hamburg, authorities said on Sunday.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the hospital, the Marienkrankenhaus, shortly after midnight.
It broke out in a room in the geriatric ward, on the ground floor of the building, and spread to the facade of the floor above. Smoke spread across the building's four floors.
Firefighters reportedly found several people crying for help from windows, and managed to rescue some using ladders.
The fire department said three adult patients were killed and more than 50 people injured, the German news agency dpa reported.
Of those, two were in a life-threatening condition, 16 had serious injuries and 36 were slightly hurt.
A section of the hospital had to be evacuated. Injured patients were treated either at the hospital itself or in nearby clinics.
The fire was extinguished within about 20 minutes. It was not immediately clear what caused the fire.
It comes after a plane crashed into a house in western Germany, killing two people including the pilot, according to local police.
The tragedy happened after the aircraft struck the terrace of a residential building in the town of Korschenbroich on Saturday.
The plane crashed at around 12.30 pm (10.30 GMT) and caused the house to catch fire, police said.
Dramatic images show firefighters hosing down the smoldering building after the flames were extinguished.
The mangled remains of the aircraft could be seen lying on the ground beside a huge hole in the wall.
Officers reportedly told German news agency dpa that one of the two people killed was the 71-year-old pilot.
The pilot was from Düsseldorf and appeared to have been sitting alone in the aircraft, they added.
It is unknown whether the other person had been a passenger on the plane or had been on the ground.
Firefighters responded in numbers with the local control center saying that around 50 personnel had been deployed.
They managed to put out the flames quickly. The cause of the crash has yet to be established.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
34 minutes ago
- Reuters
UK-based medical device company seeks $4 billion in sale, FT reports
June 3 (Reuters) - UK-based medical device company CMR Surgical has put itself up for sale at a valuation of up to $4 billion, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The surgical robotics maker had hired advisers in recent weeks to initiate the sale process, likely to elicit interest from large strategic buyers, the report added. Founded in 2014, CMR Surgical received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the upgraded version of its flagship Versius surgical robot in October last year, to be used in gall bladder removal procedures. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. CMR Surgical did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Kim Kardashian weighs in on 'momager' Kris Jenner's new look after fans say she looks younger than daughters
Kim Kardashian is weighing in on her mom Kris Jenner's dramatic new look. The 69-year-old matriarch is looking noticeably younger these days, although she has not fessed up to any recent cosmetic procedures. Her 44-year-old second-born child broke her silence on the matter, using social media to comment on the buzz after some fans admitted they think Kris now looks younger than her famous daughters. Kim shared a photo of longtime hairstylist Chris Appleton at Saturday's Netflix Tudum 2025: The Live Event, wearing a white shirt that read, 'I'll have what Kris Jenner is having.' Via Instagram Stories, she added the note, '@chrisappleton1 me too babe,' signaling her seal of approval. Jenner turned heads in May after unveiling her refreshed face while in Paris for Kim's armed robbery trial. Her rep later confirmed she enlisted the skills of celebrity plastic surgeon Dr. Steven M. Levine — dubbed the 'facelift maestro' — to achieve her rejuvenated look. A source also told that the mother-of-six is revamping her closet to match her changing appearance. 'Kris is no longer a size 10 so she has no need for those clothes. She is a size 6 these days and thrilled about it. It's the same size that she was in the 1980s,' the insider spilled. 'Her closet is completely different now — the items are so much smaller — and it makes her very happy to get back to the body that she had in her younger years,' the person added. While Jenner hasn't publicly shared how she lost the weight, fans believe it could be due to using the diabetes and weight loss drug Ozempic. Kris has historically attributed her lean figure to healthy eating and an active lifestyle. Her fans have been remarking on her glowing and youthful appearance in recent sightings and social media posts. Jenner, who shares four of her children with the late Robert Kardashian and two with Caitlin Jenner, has been candid about her cosmetic procedures in the past. Jenner's strikingly youthful appearance in recent weeks has sparked speculation about whether she's had another facelift; pictured left in May 2025, and right in May 2024 In a 2018 Keeping Up With the Kardashians episode she welcomed viewers to follow along as she had an earlobe reduction procedure. She lamented on the show, 'All I want is just cute ears. Ever since Kim made a comment about my ears I've always wondered and now I am looking in the mirror obsessively like, "Are they too big?"' And the star added, 'I learned that your nose and your ears keep growing your whole life. I think that the decision to do something about my ever-changing ears is suddenly a priority.' Kris has also been open about regularly getting Botox to help maintain a taut, wrinkle-free visage.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘Rust in peace': why are Germany's bridges and schools falling apart?
Waiting for the M49 bus to the zoo, Wolfgang, 82, peers down at the crumpled concrete and metal rubble below, the remains of a Berlin bridge recently demolished after wide cracks were discovered. Over the loud pounding of a hydraulic hammer crushing the concrete, the retired technician says he watched its construction about 60 years earlier from the window of his nearby flat. 'Now we have to hope they'll get their act together to build a new one, though I have my doubts I'll be alive to see it finished,' he says. Berlin's three-lane Ringbahnbrücke (ring road bridge), was closed unexpectedly in March, causing chaos and prompting a mass diversion of the 100,000 vehicles that used it daily. A month later, in eastern Berlin, the strategically important Wuhlheide Bridge was added to the growing list of what have been labelled 'Brösel Brücken' (crumble bridges) and is in the process of being demolished, just one among several across Germany to have recently been closed or, more dramatically still, to have collapsed. Experts have estimated that 4,000 autobahn bridges and 12,000 other road bridges are in urgent need of repair or replacement. Such are the concerns over the impact of decades of underinvestment that they have, alongside disintegrating school buildings and the beleaguered rail network, shot to the top of the agenda as Friedrich Merz's new government promises billions to renew Germany's creaking infrastructure. In the eastern city of Dresden last September, the 53-year-old Carola Bridge spanning the Elbe tumbled into the river in the middle of the night, 10 minutes after a tram had passed over it. City authorities said it was a miracle no one had been killed. Streets in the picturesque town of Lüdenscheid in western Germany are clogged with 25,000 HGVs a day, diverted there after the nearby Rahmede viaduct, a vital transport artery, was closed in 2021 owing to structural concerns and subsequently demolished. Locals complain of intense noise and emissions pollution, while businesses say their turnover has been hit and skilled workers are departing in droves. A partial new-build is under way, expected to be finished next year. Germany, for decades Europe's economic powerhouse, also has a reputation for being a land of skilful engineers and efficiency. What has gone wrong? Oliver Holtemöller, the head of macroeconomics at the Halle Institute for Economic Research, says the problems lie not in a lack of public financing, but elsewhere: 'The burden of bureaucracy, highly complex planning procedures and the lack of skilled people to carry out the work.' This, he said, was compounded by 'politicians who want to be re-elected, who prioritise projects with a very short-term return'. Even before he was sworn in as chancellor last month, run-down infrastructure was high up on the list of Merz's domestic concerns. In March, he pushed a €500bn (£422bn) fund through parliament to inject money into infrastrukturstau (infrastructure congestion) over the next 12 years, to be financed through borrowing. Bridges have earned an even more prominent place in the debate amid the recognition that the costs of their renovation can be included in Germany's military spending commitments. Bridges, after all, have to be capable of carrying military tanks; they must be kriegstauglich (fit for war). Many, in their current state, are not. For the Greens and other opposition parties, this is going too far. But, as the government signals a willingness to raise its defence spending gradually from 2% to the 5% that Donald Trump has called on Nato members to commit to, it is also widening the definition of what counts as defence spending. The foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, has said he plans to include not only pure military spending but also investments in infrastructure the military needs to use – such as roads, rail and bridges. Either way, fixing the bridges is seen as a key test for Merz: can he get a grip on the myriad challenges facing Europe's largest economy, which has had three years of negative growth? And could that help him claw back support from the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD)? 'Let the diggers roll,' his finance minister, Lars Klingbeil, of the Social Democrats, said last month, in an attempt to drum up some excitement. According to a report by the German Chamber of Industry and Trade, which represents millions of businesses, the state of Germany's bridges is 'symbolic of the desolate state of the entire infrastructure in [the country]'. In comments to the broadcaster RBB, Helmut Schmeitzner, a professor of structural engineering at Berlin's School of Economics and Law, warned: 'In general, our infrastructure is in such a state that we have to expect that such incidents as bridge and road closures will occur more frequently in the future.' So embedded has the idea of Germany's creaking infrastructure become that the heute-show, a popular satirical TV programme, recently dedicated a whole episode to 'Crumbling Germany'. 'Rust in peace' would be the appropriate slogan for the state of the nation if things did not improve, it joked. For many, however, it is no laughing matter; they warn that if Merz fails to make improvements – and quickly – the political fallout could be toxic. The AfD has already sought to profit from the controversy, calling the multiple closures and the collapse in Dresden 'not isolated cases but symbols of creeping state failure'. Holtemöller urged the government not to rush into fixing Germany, 'because that would fuel inflation but not produce real value or better bridges'. It should 'analyse where the investment is needed, which bridges are nearing the end of their lifespans' and 'bring actions and words together and not promise more than it's possible to deliver', he said. 'Most of all they should focus on long-term strategic planning.'
