Numerous emergency services were injured in an explosion at a tall building near Düsseldorf. A woman’s body was found in the apartment.
In an explosion at a tall building near Düsseldorf, several firefighters and police officers were injured on Thursday morning, some of them life-threatening. According to current police knowledge, the detonation was triggered by a 57-year-old German citizen who lived in the apartment with his mother.
After special forces broke into the apartment and arrested the man, a female body was found in the house. No information was initially given about his identity. According to information from the dpa, the person had been dead for a long time.
“Attempted Murder or Attempted Murder”
The public prosecutor’s office in Düsseldorf is investigating an attempted murder. “Further investigations must show whether it is attempted murder or attempted murder and in how many cases,” a spokeswoman for the German Press Agency said late on Thursday. The suspect is the 57-year-old man arrested. In addition, it is checked how the dead found died.
Searches on social media showed that the man “was mentally in the environment of denial of the crown”, reported North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul at the expert committee of the Düsseldorf state parliament.
Door blown open – “fireball hits emergency services”
The Düsseldorf police gave a drastic description of what happened. So emergency services were called in the morning because there were concerns about a resident of the Ratinger skyscraper whose mailbox was overflowing. When police and firefighters were standing outside the door of her apartment, her 57-year-old son suddenly opened it, police spokesman Raimund Dockter said. “There was an explosion immediately, immediately, then a ball of fire came towards the fire department and police colleagues.”
As a result, a 25-year-old police officer and a 29-year-old police officer were seriously injured. “Another 22 people suffered minor injuries,” police said late in the evening. Seven people were injured by firefighters, three of them seriously and four seriously.
How the explosion was actually triggered has yet to be determined. In the sequence, the suspect also set fire, which made it difficult to enter the apartment and reconnaissance work. It’s possible the man wanted to lure emergency services into an ambush, but that can’t be confirmed at this time, Dockter said.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst expressed their dismay at the aftermath of the blast, as did Reul. “This really is an unimaginably terrible thing for those who work every day for other people and their safety,” Faeser told reporters. It’s also bad that such a terrible event happened during a routine operation. Faeser said he spoke to Reul by phone and promised him the German government’s full support.
Wüst wrote on Twitter: “My thoughts are with the emergency services who bravely risked their lives and are now fighting for it.” Authorities made every effort to clarify the circumstances of the incident. “We give those affected our full support.”
(apa)