The fire caused an enormous cloud of smoke which hung over central Gothenburg and could be seen from across the city. 

Pictures from the scene showed flames leaping into the sky above the park’s new Oceana attraction that was due to open in the summer.

“The building has been completely burned out,” Mårten Westlund, the park’s PR chief, told the TT newswire.

“We have activated our crisis function and are giving the rescue services everything they need and we also have contact with NCC, which is responsible for the building site.” 

The blaze appeared to have broken out at one of the waterslides outside the attraction at about 10am, and then spread to the Oceana building itself, forcing the park’s owners to evacuate the nearby Grand Curiosa Hotel and some of its office buildings. 

A reporter from TT said that all that remained of the Oceana attraction was a skeletal frame, while the Aftonbladet newspaper shared dramatic footage of part of the building exploding.  

Rescue services have issued a VMA (an important public message) calling on everyone in the area to stay inside, shut their doors and windows and, if possible, shut down their ventilation systems. 

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“This is a severe fire and we have a lot of resources on the scene,” Jörgen Bäck, from the Greater Gothenburg rescue services, told the newswire.  

“The fires are still raging and most of all there is a significant amount of smoke,” added Markus Friberg, a press spokesperson for the rescue services. 

Liseberg had hoped to open Oceana before the summer, and had invested 1.2 billion kronor in the attraction.