Atomium melts in heatwave

Picture from Wikimedia by Royalbelgium

Albert II, the Belgian King made a shock announcement to the small and divided nation, to announce that the hundred metre high Atomium, was “just a big puddle”.

The monument, built in 1958 to illustrate a Tin Tin comic book, was Europe’s first major victim of global warming. The van Trapp family were one of the visitors who were safely evacuated from the structure, Georg van Trapp told reporters that the evacuation had gone smoothly as the emergency system turned the passageway into slides, “I began to suspect something as I noticed the walls became unbearably hot, then klaxons sounded, but we slid away before we knew what was happening and came to rest a safe distance away, cushioned by landing on a school group from Iowa.”

Whilst the Belgians mourned the melting of their icon, an emergency plan was put in place to put a large fridge freezer over the Manneken Pis, although scientists suggested the melting point of the tiny statue would be much higher, it was felt that the nation, having lost an unbelievably magnified iron molecule, could scarce afford to lose a urinating metal child.

The Flemish authorities announced that they would build a 100 metre high model of Helmut Lotti on the site of the Atomium. In retaliation, the Wallonian government pledged to build a replacement, but using enormous frites (local name for French fries) as legs and replacing the spheres with replica mussels, made from steel and chrome.

Eyewitnesses say that as the structure collapsed, a limousine pulled up and European Council President, Herman Van Rompuy ran out and fell on his knees in front of the lake of iron, where upon he wailed, “my precious, my precious”, over and over, seemingly unconsolable.