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A man handles fireworks on New Year's Eve in Baden-Württemberg
Photo: Arnulf Hettrich / IMAGO
After two Corona winters, people in Germany welcomed the new year again with large amounts of fireworks - a corresponding number of injuries and at least one death occurred on New Year's Eve.
In Leipzig, a 17-year-old was fatally injured while handling unauthorized fireworks, the police said.
She initiated an investigation.
In Schönebeck in Saxony-Anhalt, a 42-year-old man was hit by a car and fatally injured.
According to media reports, he had lit firecrackers on the street when he was hit by the car.
The man died at the scene of the accident.
The 61-year-old driver had a blood alcohol level of 1.86, the police said.
According to the police, a 42-year-old man in the Gotha district of Thuringia lost both his forearms as a result of the detonation of "a ball or pipe bomb".
A 21-year-old in the Schleiz district also experimented with a ball bomb – it exploded uncontrollably and ripped off his hand.
A 27-year-old in Jülich lost two fingers after sticking several fireworks together.
According to the police, the "homemade bundle of pyrotechnics" exploded in the man's hand.
When fireworks were ignited in Hohberg-Hofweier, Baden-Württemberg, a 38-year-old injured his face so badly that he had to be flown to a special clinic in a rescue helicopter.
A two-year-old child was hit in Unna, North Rhine-Westphalia: The boy was on the street with his parents around midnight when "a pyrotechnic object got into the child's hood" and exploded, as the police said.
The boy is now being treated in an accident clinic with burns on the back of his head.
In Erkrath, North Rhine-Westphalia, an eight-year-old boy was seriously injured in the face and one hand by a New Year's Eve firecracker.
Also in North Rhine-Westphalia, shortly after 1 a.m., a 40-year-old man was critically injured and his 8-year-old daughter was seriously injured.
According to initial findings, the 40-year-old is said to have set fire to several New Year's Eve rockets, which then exploded in the immediate vicinity.
Various fires on balconies and in apartments
Fireworks also caused fires, for example on balconies and in apartments.
In many places, parked cars and rubbish containers also burned.
In Balve, North Rhine-Westphalia, a woman died in an apartment fire;
the cause of the fire was initially unclear.
Police departments across the country - such as the officers in Düsseldorf - also reported "heavily drunk people, rioters, disputes and assaults".
It was "the most intense New Year's Eve in recent years," said the Middle Franconian police.
In Berlin and Hamburg in particular, emergency services and vehicles were attacked by the fire brigade and police.
After "a night of terror for millions of animals and people", the German Environmental Aid (DUH) called for the sale and use of pyrotechnics to be banned on New Year's Eve.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (both SPD) must act "immediately".
After a two-year break due to the corona pandemic, rockets and firecrackers were allowed to be fired again on New Year's Eve.
At the start of sales on Thursday, there were already long queues in front of some shops in the morning.
In Nordhorn, Lower Saxony, on Saturday night, strangers stole fireworks worth around 10,000 euros on a company premises.
tgk/afp
