Germany’s raucous New Year’s celebrations led to a typically busy night for emergency services overnight and into the early hours of Wednesday.
Police and firefighters across the country reported at least four fatal injuries related to explosions the next morning.
In several cities, emergency have been bombarded with fireworks – a recurring trend in recent years. A Berlin officer was seriously injured and had to be operated on.
The capital’s university hospital said it was treating eight other people with serious hand injuries and that “the night is still young” shortly after mid-afternoon. He then updated the figure to 15.
Berlin police issued an update early Wednesday, welcoming the implementation of new fireworks-free zones in the city center, but still reporting widespread disorder outside those zones.
“We have had to carry out around 320 arrests, in several cases both rescue workers and police came under fire [from pyrotechnics],” Berlin police spokesman Florian Nath said in a video posted online. Berlin police were escorting fire crews in the city for their own safety, a move police said had helped.
“We also have a seriously injured police officer who appears to have been hit by illegal fireworks,” Nath said, adding that he underwent emergency surgery overnight.
Cologne’s police said that two officers were injured by illegal fireworks and that fireworks had been shot at officers and firefighters. A group of around 50 people in Leipzig attacked emergency services. Similar reports and images emerged from parts of Hamburg and elsewhere.
Fire crews were in paint across the country battling smaller fires: trash cans, houses, cars, garages and other items discovered near sidewalks.
In Neuwied, a small town in western Germany, police suspect that a chimney demonstration sparked a warehouse fire that grew to a significant length before it was reported shortly before 1 a. m.
“At the scene, a fire was discovered in a giant warehouse where, among other things, wood was stored,” the Neuwied/Rhein police said in a statement. Affected citizens were emergency evacuated from nearby homes and the fire was brought under control, according to the news release.
“Work to extinguish the fire continues,” police said in an update at around 6 a.m. “The severe heat build-up also caused damage to nearby buildings.” They estimated costs to be in “a medium six-figure range.”
“The cause of this chimney is also a New Year’s chimney. Investigations continue,” police said, hours after responding to a similar chimney in the city center.
Police, medical professionals and firefighters continually maintain a ban on fireworks, or at least some restrictions on the mass amnesty on New Year’s fireworks practiced in Germany in recent years. The practice was closed for two years due to COVID-19, but then to restrict public gatherings.
The German pyrotechnics association, meanwhile, said that the deaths and serious injuries could be traced back to illegal firework usage.
“These harmful DIY paints have nothing to do with legal and controlled New Year’s fire paints” through licensed manipulators, said board member Ingo Schubert.
He argued that serious injuries were “almost out of the question” even with the use of approved fireworks and said it was up to the government to crack down on illegal fireworks, not those sold in stores. food.
msh/sms (AFP, AFP)