Hundreds of firefighters battled a massive blaze at one of Europe’s largest and most popular amusement parks on Saturday.
Videos and photos taken at Europa Park, located in the German town of Rust, show thick plumes of black smoke engulfing parts of the property and some of the park’s attractions razed to ground.
The fire reportedly originated in a storage facility near the park’s “Pirates of Batavia” ride, though the cause of the fire remains unknown.
Michael Mack, the park’s CEO, said on Twitter Saturday that the Batavia attraction had been “completely … lost” in the fire. Parts of the park’s Dutch- and Scandinavian-themed areas were also destroyed in the blaze.
The park, described as Germany’s largest and Europe’s second most popular theme park after Disneyland Paris, evacuated all its visitors after the fire broke out early on Saturday evening. Agence France-Presse said about 25,000 visitors were in the park when the blaze began.
No visitors were injured, but at least seven first responders suffered minor injuries, reported regional broadcaster SWR.
AFP said it took about 250 firefighters until Sunday morning to completely extinguish the fire.
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Europa Park reopened on Sunday morning, though some attractions and areas remained out of bounds.
The park thanked the support of fans and strangers who’d offered words of support in the blaze’s aftermath.
“Your messages and best wishes give us the strength to make every effort to return to normal operations” as soon as possible, the theme park said in a Sunday post on Twitter.