Berlin - Plate-glass broke and bargain-hunters were crushed
as 5,000 shoppers stormed past helpless police into a new Berlin
shopping mall early Wednesday.
Anti-greed demonstrators chanted condemnation of the crowd that
had gathered outside the Alexa mall to await the midnight opening of
the first shop, an electrical appliance retailer advertising
thousands of specials.
The shoppers ignored the moral criticism and surged inside. The
front door shattered in the rush and people were knocked aside.
Limping shoppers and injured staff were taken away by ambulance.
Police, who said their 100 officers at the scene could not
maintain safety, persuaded the shop to shut again after an hour of
trading.
The dark-pink building with 180 shops faces Alexanderplatz, a wide
Berlin square which used to be the home of the better shops in
communist East Germany's ramshackle economy.
The 290-million-euro (400-million-dollar) Alexa shopping centre is
the 56th mall to open in Berlin, which promotes itself today as the
'poor but sexy' city. Despite high local unemployment, more covered
malls are planned.
The rest of the mall opened for business at 7 am, but Media Markt,
a chain of 469 electrical-goods stores in 14 countries, had chosen a
midnight opening for maximum public impact.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
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