Police autos and restore tools on the scene to assist restore broken electrical energy cables at a bridge resulting in the Lichterfelde energy plant over Teltow Canal following an arson assault on January 4, 2026 in Berlin, Germany.
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A suspected arson assault has left tens of hundreds of houses and companies in Germany’s capital with out electrical energy in near-freezing temperatures.
A hearth in southwest Berlin on Saturday prompted a significant energy outage, with round 45,000 households and a couple of,200 industrial entities throughout 4 districts affected, in line with grid operator Stromnetz Berlin.
The trigger was recognized as a hearth on a cable bridge over the Teltow Canal close to the Lichterfelde energy station, with a number of cables broken because of this.
Roughly 10,000 households and 300 companies in Berlin’s Lichterfelde district have since had electrical energy restored, Stromnetz Berlin stated, though 35,000 households and 1,900 companies stay affected.
The grid firm stated energy for all clients isn’t anticipated to be restored till Thursday afternoon, at a time when Berlin is experiencing snowy circumstances and sub-zero every day temperatures.
Native officers have attributed the ability outage to an arson assault from The Vulkangruppe (The Volcano Group), a left-wing extremist group.
The Vulkangruppe reportedly printed a letter shortly after the assault, claiming accountability for the incident. They stated their actions have been directed on the fossil fuel-based vitality business, citing the local weather disaster and buildout of synthetic intelligence infrastructure. CNBC has been unable to independently confirm the letter.
“The contemptuous assault on our energy grid was not left-wing extremism. That was left-wing terrorism, and that have to be clearly acknowledged as such,” Iris Spranger, Berlin’s inside affairs minister, stated at a press convention on Monday.
“Right here, collateral injury to the life and limb of individuals in #Berlin was intentionally accepted,” Spranger stated, in line with a Google translation of her feedback posted on X.
The entry street to a closed petrol station is blocked attributable to an influence failure. After a cable bridge caught hearth, 50,000 households and a couple of,000 companies in south-west Berlin misplaced energy.
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The facility outage comes round 4 months after a suspected arson assault on energy strains in southeast Berlin affected round 50,000 households.
Vulkangruppe beforehand claimed accountability for an assault on the ability provide of Tesla’s gigafactory close to Berlin in 2024. The incident pressured Elon Musk’s firm to halt manufacturing for a short interval.
