After a fire in Berlin: power supply restored

On Saturday night a power line burned in Berlin. Thick pipes were completely on fire. Was it arson?

Berlin – Because of a suspected arson on a power line in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, around 15,000 households were without electricity on Saturday night. In some cases, the power failure lasted until Saturday afternoon before it was resolved.

Thick pipes that cross the S-Bahn ring on Dänenstrasse and between which cables run were completely on fire, the police said. Initially, there was talk of a nearby pedestrian bridge. The fire started around 3.15 a.m. and was extinguished after half an hour. Residents of a nearby apartment building had to leave their apartments in the meantime.

Probably the cause of arson

According to the police, the background to the fire was not fully clarified on Saturday. The criminal police did not rule out both targeted arson and negligent, i.e. accidental, arson. At the same time, the state security responsible for extremist acts in the State Criminal Police Office (LKA) also checked whether there could have been a political motive.

The police used a special organizational structure to monitor the situation at night, to coordinate the operation and to be able to react quickly to possible further acts.

The Twitter channel Stromnetz Berlin initially 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. In the morning 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’ll keep you up to date. ”At around 4:00 pm, the all-clear:“ It’s done: The power failure in Berlin Prenzlauer Berg has been resolved! All customers have electricity again. Thank you for your patience.”

Again and again arson attacks

The fire brigade wrote that morning 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. Damage repair is currently in progress. “

The spokesman for the Police Union (GdP), Benjamin Jendro, tweeted: “This is not a political expression of opinion. Anyone who carries out arson attacks on important components of our infrastructure and supply structure is acting absolutely senseless and attacking our democratic coexistence. These extremist attacks may not claim human lives, but are nonetheless a perfidious attempt to destabilize something that should not be belittled. “

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. dpa