A US team traveled to Berlin to investigate a broken aquarium

A Colorado company that helped build the massive aquarium at a Berlin hotel that suddenly ruptured — sending thousands of gallons of water and more than 1,500 tropical fish into the lobby and onto the street — is dispatching a team to investigate the breach , from which the first reports come, which amounts to “material fatigue”.

Acrylic sheets from Reynolds Polymer Technology, based in Grand Junction, Colorado, were used in the construction of the 82-foot-tall AquaDom at the ritzy Radisson Collection Hotel, which collapsed on Friday.

The company said in a statement that “at this point it is too early to determine the factor or factors that would lead to such an outage.”

But Iris Spranger, Berlin’s top security official, told German media that early signs seem to point to “metal fatigue”.

The giant aquarium exploded around 6 a.m. local time on Friday, and 200,000 gallons of water and more than 1,500 colorful tropical fish flooded the lobby and spilled onto the street, forcing about 300 of the hotel’s guests to be evacuated.

Most of the fish were killed, although a few were rescued at the bottom of the tank.

With postal wires