CNN: Thousands of Berliners lost power for days after climate activists struck

Berlin is plunged into darkness at night
Photo: DPA

Amid heavy snow in the German capital and temperatures plummeting to below freezing, nearly 100,000 people were left without power for several days after an alleged left-wing arson attack on Berlin’s power supply on Saturday, January 3, caused a major blackout, CNN reports.

The activist group Vulkangruppe – or Volcano Group – claimed responsibility for the attack, citing the role that fossil fuels and AI play in accelerating the climate crisis.

Roughly 45,000 homes and more than 2,000 businesses in Berlin’s wealthy southwestern districts were affected by the outage, which lasted more than four days.

The outage is believed to be the longest in Berlin’s postwar history.

What exactly happened?

The attack on Berlin’s power supply occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning, when a fire broke out on a cable duct over the Teltow Canal, which runs through the city’s south. The blaze damaged several high-voltage cables near Berlin’s Lichterfelde power plant.

Authorities put the fire out, but not before power had been cut at around 6 a.m. The outage affected up to 45,000 households and 2,200 business spanning four districts in southern Berlin, including Nikolassee, Zehlendorf, Wannsee and Lichterfelde, according to Stromnetz Berlin, the operator of the city’s electricity network.

The attack left people without power and heating amid nighttime temperatures of –10 degrees celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit), disrupted overground train lines and hit mobile phone connections.

Berlin authorities are installing temporary street lighting
Photo: DPA

The Vulkangruppe later claimed responsibility for starting the fire, in a letter sent to police. “We successfully sabotaged the gas-fired power station in Berlin-Lichterfelde,” said the letter, which has been circulated online.

This, the group said, resulted in power outages in Berlin’s “affluent” neighborhoods.

Vulkangruppe apologized to the less wealthy residents of southwestern Berlin in the letter, saying that the goal was to target the fossil fuel industry and the action was a “necessary measure against the expansion of fossil fuel-fired power plants” in Germany.

Berlin mayor Kai Wegner told reporters Wednesday that the incident was “not a minor arson attack, not sabotage, but a terrorist attack by a left-wing extremist organization with massive consequences for the supply of many Berliners.”

German federal prosecutors said they had opened an investigation into the incident, with suspected offences relating to membership in a terrorist organization, anti-constitutional sabotage and arson.

Who are the Vulkangruppe?

The Vulkangruppe is a far-left extremist group in Germany driven by anarchist, anti-capitalist and radical environmental ideologies.

The group is known for carrying out arson attacks. According to Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, the group has been behind several similar attacks targeting critical infrastructure since 2011.

In March 2024, the group claimed responsibility for a major attack on the power supply to the Tesla Gigafactory near Berlin, which forced production to halt for several days. The group published a letter online claiming it set fire to a pylon at the electric car factory after the attack.

read more in our Telegram-channel https://t.me/The_International_Affairs