Hundreds of Germans spent the night trapped in an underground car park after an avalanche of bird droppings short-circuited the exit gate.
The corrosive pigeon droppings caused a malfunction in a control box at the car park in Stuttgart, which in turn triggered fire alarms and the closure of a security gate, Bild tabloid reported.
Some 200 drivers were trapped in the car park for two hours as the fire alarm was not transmitted to firefighters, raising questions as to what might have happened if it had been a real blaze.
“We should have received a smoke alarm. There was nothing there, we were only called by the police two hours later,” a fire service spokesman said.
The drivers were eventually freed at 3am, when firefighters arrived on the scene and forced open a security gate.
Lifetime free parking
Abdullah Koteiche, a car dealer who was among those trapped, said: “I was in a bar with two friends. When we paid for our parking ticket, the alarm went off.”
The long delay in setting the drivers free was made worse by the fact the only key to open the gate was with an employee who could not be reached.
One furious driver reportedly demanded that the car park offer her lifetime free parking to make amends for the stress and inconvenience she suffered.
It is not the first bizarre fire alarm incident in Germany in recent months. In October, a brand new, state-of-the-art fire station burned down in western Germany because it did not have any fire alarms fitted.
Alarms on site were not technically required by local planning procedures because the building was classified as an equipment centre instead of a fire station.
“It is a nightmare for a firefighter. No one wants to have to extinguish his own fire station,” a firefighter chief told a local newspaper.