According to a preliminary count, mishaps connected to the potent fireworks that Germans typically set off to celebrate the new year resulted in five fatalities around Germany and the serious injury of one police officer.
Germans use fireworks exceptionally heavily to celebrate the new year, which leads to ongoing discussions about banning the most potent pyrotechnics due to the high number of accidents they cause annually, as well as the noise and pollution they produce.
According to police spokesman Florian Nath, 13 law enforcement officers were hurt in the accidents this year, one of them critically.
According to police, some 330 people were arrested overnight in Berlin, the country’s capital, although unlike in other years, “there were no major violence or incidents.”
Local police in the northwest North Rhine-Westphalia district of Paderborn said a 24-year-old man died after setting off a pyrotechnic rocket, and they suspect the victim constructed the device himself.
When a 45-year-old man in Oschatz, Saxony, set fire to a “pyrotechnic bomb,” he suffered severe head injuries and died. It was a powerful F4 category firework, which requires a specific authorization to purchase, according to the police.
A 50-year-old man in the town of Hartha, in the same eastern part of Saxony, died instantly from head injuries sustained while attempting to set off a pyrotechnic pipe bomb, according to a police spokesperson.
A 20-year-old man lost his life while lighting a pyrotechnic firework near Hamburg in the northern region.
Lastly, local police in Kremen, close to Berlin, reported that a fifth man had died as a result of “inappropriate manipulation” of fireworks. Similar conditions resulted in the serious injuries of three additional individuals in the area.
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