accidents
Car with three bodies recovered from the Rhine in Wesel
Three occupants of the vehicle could only be recovered dead. Photo: Arnulf Stoffel/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Five young people drive together in the car along the Rhine promenade, which is popular in Wesel. Then they turn towards the harbor – and a little later fall into the ice-cold river. Three of them die.
For unknown reasons, five young men fell into the Rhine while driving together at the port of Wesel.
Two of them were able to save themselves on Monday evening, but three were only rescued dead from the back seat of the car, as a police spokesman reported after the car was recovered. The victims apparently did not get out of the car in time.
On Tuesday afternoon, divers discovered the car lying upside down in the river at a depth of six meters. Two excavators were deployed on the bank for salvage. At the scene of the accident, yellow police markings were visible, which held the route of the accident car – past a yellow bollard directly towards the river and then over the edge of the bank.
A 17-year-old and a 20-year-old were able to escape from the ice-cold water in time. They were taken to a hospital with hypothermia. Previously, they reported on the other three inmates who have since gone missing, police said. Rescue workers had already searched for the sunken car in the Rhine immediately after the accident on Monday evening with a boat, a helicopter and many forces. But they couldn’t find it in the dark.
Investigators initially found it a mystery why the young men drove so close to the riverbank at the port as darkness began on Monday evening and then fell into the water. The port is in the immediate vicinity of Wesel’s Rhine promenade, which is popular with walkers, cyclists and drivers because of the attractive river panorama.
The Rhine makes a sharp curve at this point and is heavily used by commercial shipping. The shore at the accident site is normally freely accessible and not secured.