A large aquarium at a mall in Shanghai, China, burst and injured 15 people the other day. The 7-meter-long, 3-meter high aquarium was on the first floor of a mall that replaced a window between the inside and outside. The tank weighed in at 33.5 tons with 15 cm thick acrylic panes.
The 15 injured included both shoppers and staff with one man in his 30s being hit in the head with falling glass and suffered a broken leg that required surgery. While local authorities investigate the cause of the accident, workers scrambled to clean up acrylic glass, sand and water damage from the accident.
The two-year-old aquarium was a popular attraction at the mall and was home to three sharks and various other fish that were lost. This is not the first time this aquarium had issues. Earlier this year, two sharks dies after a water pipe broke and four turtles were moved out of the aquarium after the incident.
This just shows the danger behind large aquariums and is another in a growing list of large public aquariums that had issues. Two years ago the Dubai Mall Aquarium, one of the largest aquariums in the world, had a “small leak” and earlier this year, an aquarium on a casino boat in Miami broke dashing plans for all the Labor Day gamblers.
According to the story on the Shanghai Daily News, there are no plans to rebuild the aquarium.
[via PFK]
