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One woman's body was recovered but emergency responders have not
yet been able to reach the body of the second victim, a male,
rescue operation chief Joerg Teusch told reporters.
Five people have been rescued, none with serious injuries,
Teusch said, in a complex operation as the two-storey building
was unstable after its upper floor caved in late on Tuesday.
The two people still stuck in the building, which was built in
the 17th century and renovated in the 1980s, have serious
injuries but are in touch with rescuers, according to police.
Among those rescued was a two-year-old child, who was not
injured, and the child's parents, with whom rescuers were able
to establish contact overnight.
"I have never been so happy to see a stranger's child," Teusch
said, describing the tearful moment when his team carried the
toddler from the damaged building.
The cause of the accident was not yet clear. Investigations
would begin once the rescue operation was complete, state
prosecutor Peter Fritzen said.
SUMMER SEASON
Some 250 police officers, firefighters and paramedics were
deployed to the site in the town of Kroev, a popular holiday
town surrounded by the steep, vineyard-covered banks of the
river Moselle.
Emergency services used a crane and sniffer dogs to assist the
operation.
The incident comes during the busy summer season, when the
region's historic wine taverns are often full of tourists.
The hotel that partially collapsed - identified by a Reuters
witness as the Reichsschenke "Zum Ritter Goetz" - is named after
a medieval knight who is said to have once drunk at its wood-panelled
tavern and has been immortalised in a play by Wolfgang von
Goethe.
Investigators believe 14 people were in the hotel when the upper
floor caved in, five of whom escaped without injury.
Police also said 21 people in homes near the hotel had to be
evacuated, revising down their earlier figure.
(Reporting by Alex Kraus in Kroev, Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt
and Katharina Loesche in Berlin; Writing by Rachel More; Editing
by Tom Hogue and Bernadette Baum)
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