The noisy New Year’s Eve celebrations in Germany caused a busy evening for emergency services during the afternoon and 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 sites were bombarded with fireworks, a recurring trend in recent years. One Berlin officer was seriously injured and required surgery.
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 in the early hours of Wednesday, praising the implementation of new no-fireworks zones in the city center — but still reporting widespread issues outside those areas.
“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 police said two police officers were injured by illegal fireworks and fireworks were fired at police officers and firefighters. In Leipzig, an organization of about fifty other people attacked the emergency services. Similar reports and photographs have emerged in parts of Hamburg and elsewhere.
Fire crews traveled across the country fighting smaller fires: garbage cans, houses, cars, garages and other objects 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.
“A fire was discovered at the scene in a giant warehouse in which wood was stored, among other things,” Neuwied/Rhein police said in a statement. The affected citizens were evacuated from nearby homes and the fire was brought under control, according to the news release.
“Work continues to put out the fire,” the police reported around 6 in the morning. “The heat buildup on top also caused damage to nearby buildings. ” They estimated prices to be in the “mid-six-figure range. ”
“The cause for this fire is most likely also a New Year’s firework. Investigations into this continue,” police said, a matter of hours after having responded to a similar blaze in the town center.
Police, medical professionals and firefighters continually maintain a ban on fireworks, or at least some restrictions to 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 injury was “all but ruled out” even in cases of improper usage of approved fireworks and said the onus should be on authorities to crack down on illegal pyrotechnics, not those sold in shops.
msh/sms (AFP, afp)