Several warehouses went up in flames in the Rothenburgsort district of Hamburg this morning. This resulted in a huge cloud of smoke, which drifted towards the city center due to the north-easterly wind. “Hamburg city center is completely blacked out,” said a fire department spokesman.
According to initial findings, no one was injured. However, the fire brigade warned of the smoke and asked residents to keep windows and doors closed and to turn off air conditioning and ventilation.
People should close windows
An official warning said that the population “can be affected by smoke gases and chemical components in the breathing air due to a fire”. The fire brigade was initially unable to say how the major fire could have started around 4:30 a.m. and what exactly was in the burning warehouses.
However, according to the fire brigade, several containers leaked and burst on the site of a truck stop. They contained flammable liquids.
It is still unclear what exactly the chemicals are. According to a report by the NDR, it was said to have been hydrogen sulfide. The fire and smoke were classified as “extreme danger” in the official warning. “This is a really extraordinary, difficult operation,” said a fire department spokesman from the site.
Extinguishing work will take even longer
He assumed that the extinguishing work, in which around 210 emergency services were involved, would continue throughout the day. Only then can the police begin their fire investigation. Rothenburgsort is located to the east of the city center on the North Elbe and borders, among other things, on Hafencity.
The fire also affected rail traffic. According to Deutsche Bahn, train services between Hamburg and Büchen (Schleswig-Holstein) had to be stopped due to the fire in the immediate vicinity of the platform. This in turn meant that all IC, EC and ICE trains between Hamburg and Berlin had to be diverted and were delayed by around 60 minutes. IC and ICE trains between Hamburg and Rostock were canceled altogether. A replacement service has been set up for the S-Bahn line between Berliner Tor and Billwerder-Moorfleet, which is also closed.
