Column of smoke over Offenbach – explosion in recycling plant | hessenschau.de

A major fire broke out in a recycling plant in Offenbach East on Sunday evening. Several residents were brought to safety. Long-distance and regional rail services have been discontinued.

As the fire brigade informed the hr, there had previously been an explosion within the Redux recycling plant. First of all, there was a fire in a warehouse for batteries, the operations manager told HR. These flew up to 50 meters. The hall was already in full fire when the emergency services arrived there in the evening.

From there, the flames would have spread to a neighboring building. The fire department couldn’t prevent it. Firefighters couldn’t get close enough to the source of the fire because of the intense heat.

Water cannon after Hessenderby in use

The Offenbach fire brigade called for reinforcements from Frankfurt and the technical relief organization to extinguish the major fire from two sides. According to the operations manager, 250 to 300 emergency services were on site. A water cannon, which was previously used in the Hessen derby between Eintracht Frankfurt and Darmstadt 98, was also to be used to extinguish the fire.

A spokesman for the city of Offenbach said several smaller explosions could be heard. A column of smoke can be seen from miles away, including in neighboring Frankfurt. Accordingly, long-distance traffic on the ICE route to Frankfurt and regional traffic were discontinued.

Residents should keep windows and doors closed

A police spokesman said residents in Offenbach were asked to keep windows and doors closed. According to hr information, 20 people living on the street were evacuated. There had already been a fire in the company in 2019. Numerous videos of the explosion circulated on Twitter.

The Redux company recycles various types of lithium-ion batteries and accumulators. These are used in smartphones, electric cars and e-bikes, for example.