May 11, 2009, 18:08 GMT
Cologne - Around 80 per cent of the documents contained in an archive building that collapsed in early March in the western German city of Cologne have been recovered, Georg Quander, the city's head of culture, said Monday.
'We've worked really quickly,' Quander told the German Press Agency dpa.
The archive collapsed apparently due to tunnelling work for a new underground train line. Two people were killed in the accident, in which a total of three buildings fell into a hole that opened up in the ground.
The archives, which had six levels above ground and two below, were described as the richest municipal record collection in northern continental Europe, including decrees by emperors, lists of medieval residents and centuries of merchants' records.
Also in the archives were the private papers of Nobel Literature Prize laureate Heinrich Boell (1917-1985) and then-West Germany's first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, and original music by composer Jacques Offenbach. The oldest item dated from 922.
Quander however could provide no information as to which items had been rescued.
'The holdings are all mixed up together. There are no complete volumes together,' Quander said, adding as well that there was no determination as to the amount of damage done to the collection.
The search for the complete remains of the archive's holdings is to continue at least to the end of May.
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