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Jena: A wheel loader clears snow from the market square; there were at times around 6,500 households in the city without a district heating supply
Photo: Bodo Schackow / dpa
It is still bitterly cold in Germany - however, drivers no longer had to accept any major disabilities on Thursday night.
In Jena, however, the icy temperatures caused a disaster: around 6,500 households there had to get by without heating and hot water after a district heating line was interrupted.
In the early morning, the municipal utilities reported that the district heating pipeline was back in operation.
An approximately five centimeter long crack in the line was successfully welded shut during the night.
On Wednesday, employees of the municipal utilities and specialist companies in the city in Thuringia spent hours looking for the cause of the accident and tore open a street for it.
In the meantime, residents have been asked to keep windows and doors closed to delay the cooling of their apartments.
Some people were placed in emergency shelters.
Elsewhere the situation remained calm during the night.
In the Bielefeld area, where cars and trucks on the A2 had jammed extremely in the past few nights, the traffic flowed largely without problems.
"It's more relaxed than the nights before," said a police spokesman.
According to the police there, many trucks were still parked on the hard shoulder near Braunschweig because rest areas were full.
But there were no accidents.
In other regions, too, the police stations reported comparatively few ice accidents.
However, there was a fatal traffic accident in the Sigmaringen district in Baden-Württemberg.
A 41-year-old ran into oncoming traffic in wintry road conditions.
There was a minor accident in the Ravensburg district: A 52-year-old man got off the B12 in his van in the snow and broke through the wall of a farmhouse on the ground floor.
This then had to be supported by the fire brigade.
The damage to the house is estimated at 50,000 euros.
The driver of the van was unharmed, the housemaid got away with the horror.
In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, three people were injured when a car slipped and hit a tree.
Couple rescues children from sea - man suffers cardiac arrest
Off the road, the emergency services were also busy with snow and slippery roads - on Wednesday they reported more leisure emergencies: Rescuers spent hours looking for a man in a pond in Berlin who had apparently consciously stepped into the water - presumably for bathing or diving.
According to the fire department, he was brought to a special clinic "under resuscitation conditions".
Two children broke into the ice of a pond near Flensburg.
According to the emergency services, a couple observed the incident and rescued the children between the ages of four and six years from the ice-cold water.
After the rescue operation, the man reportedly suffered a cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated by rescue workers.
The woman suffered from hypothermia.
According to Deutsche Bahn, the most important north-south and east-west long-distance traffic connections were "mostly stable, albeit with significant delays" on Wednesday.
On Thursday, traffic from Dresden towards Leipzig and Frankfurt should start again in the afternoon, as the train reported on its website.
Also between Hamburg and Kiel as well as Hamburg and Westerland there should be a "restricted offer" again.
In the coming days it will remain frosty in Germany.
According to the German Weather Service (DWD), the night on Wednesday was the coldest of the year so far.
"Above the snow-covered middle and the east, it cooled in areas to below minus 20 degrees," said meteorologist Adrian Leyser.
»› Coldspot ‹was Thuringia with a low of minus 26.7 degrees Celsius, measured in Mühlhausen.«
Meanwhile, the deserted inner cities in the corona lockdown make it easier for the few cold buses to take care of the homeless.
“The streets have been completely empty so far.
It is of course easier to get through the pedestrian zones.
You can also recognize the homeless faster, ”said Sandra Welsch, who as a social worker for the German Red Cross in Stuttgart coordinates the use of the cold bus there.
Homeless people can also find a place to sleep more easily at the moment because shops are closed.
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wit / dpa
