Prenzlauer Berg
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Fire on the supply line causes power outages for thousands
Thousands of households in Prenzlauer Berg are without electricity. During the night there was a fire on a footbridge, damaging a supply line. It is unclear whether the line was deliberately set on fire.
Because of a suspected arson on a power line in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg, thousands of households were without electricity on Saturday night. As Stromnetz Berlin announced to the rbb, around 9,000 households and 1,000 businesses are affected.
A pedestrian bridge over the S-Bahn ring on Dänenstrasse, under which the line runs, was completely in flames, the police said. The fire started around 3 o’clock. It will be checked whether the state security responsible for extremist acts in the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) takes over the investigation. The criminal police did not rule out a non-political arson or a negligent, i.e. accidental arson.
The police used a special organizational structure to observe the situation at night, to coordinate the operation and to be able to react quickly to possible further acts.
Damage not repaired in the late morning
On the Twitter channel Stromnetz Berlin it was said during the night that the repair of the damage would take until 6 a.m. Then it was reported that the damage had been repaired. At 9 o’clock it was tweeted: “The power failure in Berlin Prenzlauer Berg is still going on! A prognosis for restoration cannot be made at the moment. We will keep you up to date.”
The fire brigade wrote about the same time that the fire had been extinguished. “Due to the fire damage to the power supply, there is currently a power outage for individual households in the Gleimviertel and Helmholtzkiez areas. The repair is currently in progress.” A fresh water pipe was also damaged in the fire, so the flames could not spread widely. The fire brigade was able to extinguish the fire quickly.
It was initially unclear whether this was actually a targeted attack. Nevertheless, the spokesman for the police union (GdP), Benjamin Jendro, has already spoken in this direction. He wrote on Twitter: “This is not a political expression of opinion. Anyone who carries out arson attacks on important parts of our infrastructure and supply structure is acting absolutely senseless and attacking our democratic coexistence.”
Arson attacks on supply facilities in Berlin have occurred several times. The perpetrators were often left-wing extremists, according to letters confessing them on the Internet. In October a year ago there was an arson attack on cable connections of the S-Bahn near the Frankfurter Allee station in Friedrichshain. The S-Bahn traffic was disturbed for a long time.
Broadcast: evening show, October 2nd, 2021, 7.30 p.m.