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meIn Alsace, France, a 25-year-old man died on New Year’s Eve while setting off fireworks. The fireworks mortar “tore off the head” of the young man in the municipality of Boofzheim, announced the Bas-Rhin prefecture, near the border with Germany. Another man was seriously injured in the head in the accident in the city about 30 kilometers south of Strasbourg. The 24-year-old was taken to a hospital.
The exact circumstances of the incident near the German border were initially unclear. According to the local newspaper “DNA”, the fireworks initially did not explode; when the two men approached, they lit up.
In the department of Bas-Rhin, the sale and private use of fireworks have been prohibited since the beginning of December. The regulation is valid until January 4. The prefecture had justified the ban with the Corona crisis, among other things. Large crowds should be avoided. The message also recalled that a 30-year-old man died in 2019 after being injured by a firework.
Homemade pyrotechnics – a dead man in Brandenburg
There were also accidents in Germany. A 24-year-old man was killed in a fireworks accident in Brandenburg. According to the first findings of the police, the self-made pyrotechnics ignited shortly after midnight in Rietz-Neuendorf, near Frankfurt (Oder), as announced by a spokesman for the situation service early Friday morning. They were fireworks that could not be bought. Details of the exact course of the accident were initially unclear.
The victim is said to have been with a group on undeveloped private property. There were no more injuries, the spokesman said. A police deactivation team also made sure that the pyrotechnics had not been lit.
In Lauenburg (Schleswig-Holstein), a 37-year-old man blew his hand off with a firecracker. The blast was very loud, a police spokesman said on New Year’s Day. According to initial findings, the firecrackers had already been in storage for two years. It was not initially clear if the fireworks were approved in Germany.
A 21-year-old from the Osnabrück district was seriously injured in an explosion in a residential building in Hilter. According to initial findings, he had manipulated chemicals with a 20-year-old and a 26-year-old to produce fireworks, police said.
Parts of his limbs were severed from the 21-year-old in the blast. The 26-year-old was seriously injured in the accident and the 20-year-old was slightly injured. The house was also seriously damaged. The police estimate that the material damage amounts to at least 100,000 euros.
Corona’s requirements are largely met
Still, according to police reports, New Year’s Eve was exceptionally quiet throughout Germany. The restrictions due to the corona pandemic were largely met. The Berlin police recorded only a few violations of Corona’s requirements. There were demonstrations in Stuttgart on Thursday night, which the security forces broke up for violating the Infection Protection Act. Police were on the move across the country with massive staff to enforce the crown’s requirements.
Due to the corona pandemic, the sale of New Year’s Eve fireworks was banned across the country this year to protect hospitals from overload. Firecracker ban zones have been established in many places.
In general, the situation is “calm”, said a police spokesman in the capital early Friday morning. After midnight, there were briefly more people on the streets. In isolated cases, unauthorized fireworks were lit in firecracker ban zones. Officers also had to break up various crowds.
So far, more than 80 people have been briefly detained, among other things, for checks in the course of Corona’s measures. Early in the evening, the emergency services reported that they had filed several complaints, among other things for shooting and drinking.
The Berlin police had prepared for New Year’s Eve with a huge number of personnel. 2,900 officials, 600 of them from other federal states, were on duty in the capital. Officials were particularly interested in the government district and the Brandenburg Gate, where hundreds of thousands of people often gather to celebrate the New Year.
The Berlin fire brigade has been involved in 148 fires since midnight. In the Steglitz district, emergency services were attacked in an ambulance, the fire department wrote on Twitter. A grocery store caught fire in Berlin-Buckow and around a hundred emergency services were deployed to put out the fire.
Group attacks firefighters in Dortmund
In Dortmund, people out of a group of around 50 attacked the emergency services. Contrary to calls from the authorities, people had gathered in a neighborhood in the Clarenberg district, apparently several small groups got together, as announced by the city administration.
Several interferers emptied fire extinguishers onto the road and threw firecrackers at passing cars. They put a dumpster in the path of firefighters and set another dumpster on fire. Police officers temporarily arrested a 16-year-old from among those involved and filed criminal charges for disorderly conduct and property damage.
The group was an exception at late-night events at the end of the year, it was said. Otherwise, the Dortmunders would have adhered to the requirements in an exemplary manner, demonstrated responsibility and solidarity, commended police and regulatory authorities.
Also in cities like Hannover, Erfurt and Rostock, the police took a positive balance on New Year’s Eve. In Frankfurt, the police said their farewells at 4 am on Twitter with the hashtag #Frankfurtbleibtstabil and wished them a “good night’s sleep”.
