Press
A huge cloud of smoke paralyzes parts of the Harburg port traffic. The fire brigade is called out on a major operation. The reason for this is a burning pile of scrap metal. The State Criminal Police Office is now investigating.
Hamburg – Dark, dense clouds of smoke have drifted over the south of Hamburg. The smoke was so strong that the population had to be warned and traffic on land and water had to be restricted.
The dark smoke came from a pile of scrap metal that had caught fire for an initially unknown reason. According to the fire department, around 600 square meters of metal waste was on fire on company premises. The police – specifically the State Criminal Police Office – want to start investigating after the extinguishing work in order to find out how the fire started. The fire department with more than 80 men and women was on duty for more than four hours. According to police and fire officials, no one was injured in the fire.
The fire still had an impact: shipping traffic in the Harburg district on the Süderelbe was restricted in the morning. The reason for this was the heavy smoke and the resulting restriction of visibility. Because of the risk of accidents, the water police closed the southern Elbe to shipping traffic around the fire. The waterways are now clear again. In the Harburg industrial area, an affected street was also cleared by the police. According to a police spokesman, they wanted to make sure that the extinguishing work could be carried out undisturbed.
South of Hamburg affected
The huge cloud of smoke that had spread south of the Elbe in the morning affected the districts of Heimfeld, Harburg and Wilhelmsburg. The population in the area was warned of the effects of the smoke until midday. Due to the wind direction, the warning was briefly extended to Neuallermöhe and the A25. At around 12.20 p.m., the fire brigade lifted the alarm.
According to police reports, the closures were lifted again in the early afternoon. Since midday, fewer emergency services have been at the scene of the fire, according to the X platform (formerly Twitter). They are now responsible for the follow-up fire-fighting work. This will take a long time, as the pile of scrap metal must first be removed in order to reach all the embers, according to a fire department spokesman.
According to the fire department spokesman, smoke is generally harmful to health. However, no unusual pollutants have been detected so far. The extent to which the environment would be damaged was initially unclear. According to the fire department, the smoke cloud was continuously tested for pollutants. dpa
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