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After the floods in Erftstadt (photo taken on July 15), several buildings were swept away and there were no deaths.
Photo:
Rhein-Erft district / dpa
In connection with the devastating demolition of a gravel pit in Erftstadt during the flood disaster in July, the police searched, among other things, the rooms of an open pit operator. The public prosecutor in Cologne announced that the investigation was based on the suspicion of negligent causing of a flood through failure, the risk to construction and a violation of the Federal Mining Act. In the accident, numerous houses near the gravel pit were washed down and collapsed.
More than 140 police officers are currently involved in the raids in more than 20 office and residential addresses in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as in one property in Thuringia, it said.
There is a suspicion that on the southern edge of the so-called old area of the affected gravel pit there was no flood protection wall that complied with the official regulations and that there were also impermissibly steep embankments.
Both aspects could have been the cause of the ingress of large amounts of water into the gravel pit.
So-called retrograde erosion is said to have washed down parts of Erftstadt and led to the collapse of several residential buildings.
The investigation is directed against the owner and lessor of the opencast mine, five accused of the operating company based in Bergheim - and against four accused of the Arnsberg district government as the supervisory and licensing authority responsible under the Federal Mining Act.
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apr / AFP
