Roof collapses at supermarket in Germany

The roof of a supermarket in southern Germany collapsed on Tuesday, authorities said. Five employees and a lone customer escaped unhurt. The staff and the shopper were able to escape from the store in the town of Toeging am Inn because the roof caved in slowly, some of it caught by the market shelves, police spokesman Fritz Braun said. Search dogs and a rescue helicopter were deployed briefly as a precaution, but Red Cross official Klaus Werkstetter said no one was found in the building.

No cause was immediately given for the collapse of the flat, corrugated iron roof, but there was heavy snowfall overnight in Bavaria. Last month, 15 people were killed, most of them children, when the snow-covered roof of an ice rink collapsed in the Bavarian spa town of Bad Reichenhall.

On Jan. 28, the roof of an exhibition hall collapsed in southern Poland, killing at least 63 people. A thick layer of ice and snow on the roof was considered a possible cause. On Tuesday, roofs collapsed amid heavy snowfall at an apartment building, an abandoned factory and a turkey farm in separate Polish towns. There were no reports of injuries, reports the AP.

N.U.