Falling statue kills 7-year-old girl vacationing with family in Germany, police say

A child died after a 440-pound statue fell on top of her at a hotel in Munich on Friday evening, Aug. 26, German police told news outlets.

The 7-year-old girl, Lavinia Trematerra, was on a trip with her parents from Italy, according to The Associated Press and Italian news outlet Corriere della Sera. Heute, a German news outlet, reported that the girl had been playing with another child in a courtyard at a hotel in the Isarvorstadt neighborhood of Munich.

Her father, a lawyer from Naples, witnessed the incident, according to Corriere della Sera. He and others at the scene were able to get the statue off the girl, and she was taken to the hospital, where she later died of her injuries, news outlets reported.

The statue was about 4.5 feet tall and sitting atop a concrete pedestal, according to Heute. But it isn’t immediately clear what caused it to fall.

Some of the parents’ colleagues posted on Facebook about the tragedy.

Munich is a city in southern Germany, known internationally for its annual Oktoberfest beer festival, and gets about 9 million visitors per year, according to the city’s travel website statistics from 2019.

Emmalyse Brownstein

McClatchy DC

Emmalyse Brownstein is a National Real-Time Reporter covering the Southeast. She’s an alumna of the University of Miami, where she was editor-in-chief of Distraction Magazine. She has reported for Miami New Times, Wine Spectator and more.