BERLIN — Power was fully restored this afternoon to roughly 45,000 households and more than 2,000 businesses in Berlin, city officials said, five days after a suspected act of sabotage triggered the German capital’s longest blackout since World War II.
The outage affected more than 100,000 Berliners, many of whom endured more than four days without electricity or heating as temperatures hovered below freezing. The disruption darkened streets and apartments, snarled train services, cut internet access and initially affected power supply at some hospitals, authorities said.
- Advertisement -
Local police said the incident began when high-voltage cables near a gas-fired power plant in the south of the city were set ablaze last Saturday using incendiary devices. A far-left environmentalist group calling itself “Vulkangruppe” — the Volcano Group — claimed responsibility in a statement on Sunday. German federal prosecutors have opened an investigation into the sabotage and the group’s claim.
In the days after the attack, emergency teams raced to stabilize critical services. Volunteers from a German federal relief agency deployed generators across affected neighborhoods, and military personnel helped refuel the units to keep them running. The German Red Cross opened heated shelters with beds for residents who could not stay in their homes without power or heat.
By yesterday, only about one-third of affected households had been reconnected, underscoring the scale of repairs required to damaged high-voltage infrastructure. Full restoration to the roughly 45,000 households and more than 2,000 businesses came today as crews finished testing and brought remaining lines back online, officials said.
The blackout rippled across southern districts and into neighborhoods including Zehlendorf, where streetlights went dark and shopkeepers shuttered early. Commuters faced delays as rail operators rerouted services, while residents queued to charge phones and pick up hot meals at community centers and relief points.
Authorities have not publicly linked the incident to any foreign actor. But the scope of the outage and the time needed to fully restore power have sharpened questions about Germany’s ability to protect critical infrastructure amid a broader uptick in threats. The blackout follows a spate of sabotage incidents on the national rail network last year and rising numbers of daily cyberattacks in the country, officials have said.
Security experts say the attack underscores the vulnerability of high-voltage arteries, substations and communications nodes that underpin energy, transport and health systems. While investigators work to confirm the perpetrators and methods, policymakers are likely to face renewed pressure to harden sites, improve surveillance and speed up coordinated response plans for physical and digital assaults.
City authorities urged affected residents to remain cautious as systems fully stabilize and to report any lingering outages. Emergency shelters and mobile generators were being wound down late today, with officials promising a review of response measures once the inquiry advances.
Additional reporting by Reuters.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
