At least 11 people were killed and more were feared dead when the roof of a skating rink in Germany collapsed in heavy snow, police and officials said yesterday. Schools in the region were on holiday and many children and their parents were inside the building in the Bavarian town of Bad Reichenhall when the roof, weighed down by masses of snow, fell in on Monday.

Relatives faced an agonizing wait as rescuers with sniffer dogs and heavy cranes worked in bitter cold through the night to clear masses of snow and debris but there was little sign of life coming from under the piles of rubble. ?It?s unfortunately deathly quiet in the hall,? police spokesman Fritz Braun said. Officials said around 50 people were thought to have been in the sports complex when the roof collapsed. Around 30 were injured and several others escaped from the collapse unscathed.

?Five bodies have been recovered. Another person was rescued but subsequently died in hospital. Five more bodies have been seen but not yet recovered,? a police spokesman in the nearby town of Traunstein said. A local government spokesman in the Berchtesgaden region near the Austrian border said rescuers could see several bodies but declined to give a number. He said that in addition to the six dead whose bodies had been secured ? a woman, four children and a youth ? 16 other people were missing.

Rescue work was hampered by driving snow and by the danger that large lumps of concrete and twisted metal could collapse on emergency services but officials were keenly aware that freezing temperatures made speed an imperative. ?Every minute counts,? a police spokesman said. A girl was brought out from the rubble some six hours after the roof collapsed at around 4 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Monday afternoon but there was little other cause for cheer.

A news conference is scheduled for around 0630 GMT. German public television reported that state prosecutors were examining the case to see if charges of negligence could be brought. Shortly before the collapse officials canceled a training session of a local ice hockey team scheduled for the afternoon amid concern over the volume of snow building up. But officials said measurements showed the quantities of snow on the roof were within normally safe limits and there was no indication of any immediate safety threat. German media reported that building problems had long been identified in the structure, dating from the 1970s.

Kerstin DOERR