Fire in the house
“You can’t survive the violence”: Rescue workers find body after explosion in Essen
Firefighters extinguish a fire in an apartment building in Essen
© Markus Gayk / DPA
A woman is injured and another person dies in an explosion in an apartment building in Essen. How the accident happened is still unclear. But residents and rescue workers agree: it was violent.
A young woman was seriously injured and two other people were slightly injured in the explosion and fire. The resident jumped out of the window of the burning apartment building. Rescue workers found her lying on the street with broken glass and building pieces scattered around her. The seriously injured woman was taken to a center for burn victims in Bochum. Two other people were slightly injured. According to police, five people were reported to be in the house.
When the first police officers arrived on scene, the ground floor and first floor were on fire. The emergency services were presented with a devastating picture. “The street is like a field of rubble, everything is full of rubble and broken glass,” described a fire department spokesman on Sunday morning. Windows on the house and windows of parked cars were shattered and the building was no longer habitable.
Helpers rescue dead person
The emergency services were unable to enter the destroyed building for a long time to search for possible additional victims. On Sunday morning, firefighters searched the house with rescue dogs and initially found no one before they came across the body.
“You cannot survive the violence that took place here,” said the fire department spokesman early on Sunday morning. The pressure wave caused by the explosion also destroyed a wall of the directly adjacent residential building. Two residents from the neighboring house were initially treated on site by the emergency services and were taken to hospital with minor injuries.
Three other people were also treated by emergency services but were uninjured. On Sunday morning, structural engineers gave the all-clear for the evacuated neighboring building: it was not in danger of collapsing.
Neighbors report: “We felt the explosion in our apartment”
The cause of the explosion is still unclear, said the fire department spokesman. Even on Monday night, the police were unable to provide any new information about the cause. According to initial findings, the incident happened in an apartment on the ground floor. From there the fire immediately spread to the rest of the building.
Residents told the German Press Agency how they had tried to help the residents that evening. “We live a few meters away and felt the explosion in our apartment,” said one man. He ran to the house with his girlfriend and saw the flames in the ground floor apartment. A woman took her dog outside and ran back into the house to save other animals. Other neighbors pulled a resident out of the building.