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 fire services around the country reported at least four fatal injuries the following morning, seemingly connected to explosions.
In several cities, emergency services were pelted by pyrotechnics — a recurring trend in recent years. One Berlin officer was severely hurt and required surgery.
The capital’s university hospital said it was treating eight people with severe hand injuries and “the night is still young” soon after midnight. It later updated the figure to 15.
More than 300 arrests in Berlin
Berlin police issued an update in the early hours of Wednesday, praising the implementation of new no-fireworks zones in the city centre — 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 severely injured police officer who appears to have been hit by an illegal firework,” Nath said, adding 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.
Major warehouse fire in Neuwied, timber ablaze
Fire crews were in action all over the country dealing with smaller fires — garbage cans, houses, cars, garages and other items found near the pavements.
In Neuwied, a small city in western Germany, though, police suspected a firework caused one blaze at a warehouse that grew to a serious size before being reported shortly before 1 a.m.
“At the site a large warehouse, storing timber among other things, was discovered fully ablaze,” Neuwied/Rhein police said in a statement. Affected locals were cleared from nearby homes by emergency services and the fire was brought under control, it said.
“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 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 centre.
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, meanwhile, said that the deaths and serious injuries could be traced back to illegal firework usage.
“These extremely dangerous DIY jobs have nothing to do with legal and checked New Year’s fireworks” from approved handlers, board member Ingo Schubert said.
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.
