After the major fire at a rest stop in southern Hesse, the investigators assume that the motorist sped into the gas station at more than 150 kilometers per hour. Further background to what happened is also becoming clearer.
Weiterstadt / Darmstadt – One day after the major fire at the Gräfenhausen-Ost motorway service station on the A 5, the police published the first results of the investigation.
Accordingly, the dead man is a 54-year-old man. He is said to have raced into the gas station of the rest area near Weiterstadt in southern Hesse on Monday at “significantly more than 150 km / h”. The police in Darmstadt announced on Tuesday that he probably wanted to take his own life.
The investigators estimate the damage to property at more than one million euros. The autopsy, scheduled for Tuesday, should confirm the man’s identity.
The 54-year-old drove against a girder on the roof structure of the facility on Monday morning. His car broke in two and caught fire. Several petrol pumps, a van and the roof of the plant in the Darmstadt-Dieburg district caught fire. Up to 180 firefighters fought the flames for hours. Only the presence of mind of a cashier prevented a possible disaster. The man had turned off the petrol supply to the pumps at the last second with an emergency stop switch, thus preventing a possible explosion.
Almost a year ago a driver crashed into a gas station. At that time, a total of six people were injured by the fire near Wiesbaden, including the 50-year-old driver of the car. Here, too, the cashier had pressed the emergency stop button in good time. The 50-year-old there had fled from a police check. dpa
