THE partial collapse of a hotel in a wine-making town on the River Mosel in western Germany has left two people dead and two others trapped in the wreckage, authorities said today.

Fourteen people were in the hotel in Kroev when a floor of the building collapsed at about 11pm on Tuesday.

Police said that five were able to get out of the building unhurt because they weren’t in the part that collapsed, but others were trapped.

Rescuers were able to contact some of them by phone. But reaching them proved to be difficult because the collapse left two ceilings lying on top of each other, according to Bernkastel-Wittlich district fire and disaster protection inspector Joerg Teusch.

“We have to proceed with caution because the entire building structure is like a house of cards. If we pull on the wrong card, this building is sure to collapse,” he said.

Five people were rescued today. Among the first to be saved was a two-year-old child, who was pulled out unharmed, and the child’s mother, who was rescued with minor injuries. The child’s father was rescued later.

“We all had tears in our eyes and I still feel the same now. The whole story has a very emotional component, because when we arrived, when we looked at the building, it looked like we weren’t taking anyone out,” Mr Teusch told a news conference.

He said the cause of the structural collapse had not yet been determined.

The original hotel building is believed to date back to the 17th century, but additional floors were added around 1980, he said.

He added that building work had taken place on Tuesday, but it was not clear whether there was any link between that and the collapse.

Regional public broadcaster SWR said that witnesses had reported hearing a bang and seeing a large cloud of dust at the time of the collapse.