Germany: 4 killed in warehouse fire amid New Year’s fireworks

Representative image ( Picture credit: AP )

Germany’s raucous New Year’s Eve celebrations made overnight and into Wednesday’s early hours a generally busy night for emergency services.
At least four catastrophic accidents, allegedly related to explosions, were reported by police and fire services all over the nation the day after midnight.
Crisis services were pelted by scenes in a number of locations, a practice that has become common in recent years. One Berlin commander was seriously injured and required procedure.
The school clinics in the capital said it was treating eight people with severe side injuries and that” the night is still young” shortly after midnight. The figure was afterwards increased to 15.
More than 300 detention in Berlin
Berlin authorities updated the city center on Wednesday morning, applauding the construction of new no-fireworks zones, but are still receiving reports of common problems 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. For their own health, German authorities were escorting fire crews in the city, a move that police claimed had been beneficial.
We also have a seriously damaged police officer who appears to have been struck by an illegal firework, according to Nath, who added that he had to have emergency surgery immediately.
According to Cologne’s police, two officers were seriously hurt by illegal fireworks and lights had been aimed at officers and paramedics. Around 50 citizens from Leipzig fought against emergency services. Similar information and pictures emerged in pieces of Hamburg and abroad.
Big warehouse fire in Neuwied, forest fire
Fire crews were in motion all over the country dealing with smaller fires — garbage cans, houses, vehicles, buildings and other objects found near the roads.
However, authorities in Neuwied, a little city in northern Germany, believed a firework had started one blaze at a warehouse, which quickly grew to a significant size.
” At the page a large inventory, collecting firewood among other things, was discovered completely ablaze”, Neuwied/Rhein authorities said in a statement. Emergency services removed the damaged residents from local homes and brought the fire under control, it said.
” Job to extinguish the fire continues”, authorities said in an upgrade at around 6 a. m.” The intense heat build-up likewise caused damage to nearby houses”. They estimated costs to be in” a moderate six-figure collection”.
” The reason for this hearth is most likely even a New Year’s firework. After responding to a related incident in the city center, police said, “investigations continue.”
Pyrotechnics association says illegal fireworks are the problemPolice, medical professionals and firefighters have more than once recommended a firework ban, or at least some restrictions on the mass New Year’s Eve fireworks amnesty practised in Germany, in recent years. The practice was shut down for two years amid COVID-19, albeit then to limit public gatherings.
The German Pyrotechnics Association, however, said that the fatalities and serious injury could be traced back to illegal firework use.
” These really harmful DIY careers have nothing to do with legal and checked New Year’s lights” from authorized managers, committee member Ingo Schubert said.
He claimed that even in cases of improper use of approved fireworks, serious injury was” all but ruled out” and that the onus should be on authorities to stop selling illegal fireworks.

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