Climate activists in Lützerath concrete themselves in – and apparently have to ask the police for help

Created: 01/13/2023, 16:40

By: Patrick Huljina

Climate activists want to prevent the eviction of the brown coal town of Lützerath.

Some even embed themselves in concrete – and some of them have to be freed.

Lützerath - On Thursday (January 12), the police continued to clear the lignite town of Lützerath, which was occupied by activists.

The mood heated up significantly on the second day of the eviction.

According to the police, officials were thrown with firecrackers and paint bags.

A Molotov cocktail, stones and pyrotechnics were fired in the direction of the emergency services on Wednesday.

Lützerath eviction: the weather is troubling climate activists

Lützerath is to be cleared and demolished in order to be able to mine the coal deposits underneath.

Climate activists want to prevent this and continue to hold out in tree houses and occupied buildings in the settlement.

How many there are is unclear.

A large contingent of police is deployed.

The remaining climate activists are now also struggling with the weather.

There was constant rain and strong winds in Lützerath.

"We hope that the storm won't get any stronger," said a spokeswoman for the "Lützerath Lives" initiative on Thursday morning.

The situation is particularly dangerous for the activists in the tree houses.

Climate activists in Lützerath cement themselves in – and have to ask the police for help

The adverse weather conditions apparently posed problems for the climate activists, especially at night.

As

reports, some of the activists had concreted themselves in the ground or with entire foundations.

Due to the low temperatures at night, however, they developed health problems.

According to the report, they had to ask the police for help.

The forces used, among other things, a jackhammer and a flex to free the activists.

Already on Wednesday there were reports of climate activists who had chained themselves to concreted-in pipes.

Here, too, emergency services first had to break up the concrete in order to free them.

In the early morning hours on Thursday, according to the German Press Agency, the police took a woman out of a car wreck that had been built as an obstacle on a path.

She had therefore entrenched herself there and also cemented her feet in the way.

In December, a climate activist had already been ridiculed for his asphalt hand - at that time the glue was too strong.

The police in Lützerath repeatedly have to cut out and free activists from cars.

© Thomas Banneyer/dpa

Lützerath evacuation: Police and RWE announce demolition work

Lützerath is now completely surrounded by a double fence.

The fence is almost finished, only the gates are still missing, said a spokesman for the energy company RWE on Thursday morning.

The gates should be hung during the day.

On Wednesday, RWE began erecting the approximately two-meter-high construction to mark the town as a company site.

Unauthorized persons should be prevented from entering the locality.

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As soon as the police have declared individual areas to be cleared, excavators should start with the "orderly dismantling" - i.e. the demolition.

"We don't know when that will be," said the RWE spokesman.

"Safety for everyone involved has absolute priority for us." The police have now announced demolition and tree felling work in the course of Thursday.

For the Greens, the Lützerath eviction is a dilemma.

The eco-party is committed to climate protection on site, but is responsible for the current situation itself.

A member of the ARD was also confronted with this.