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Police vehicles and repair equipment on site to help repair damaged electrical cables on a bridge leading to the Lichterfelde power station over the Teltow canal following an arson attack on January 4, 2026 in Berlin, Germany.
Omer Messinger | Getty Images News | Getty Images
A suspected arson attack has left tens of thousands of homes and businesses in the German capital without power in near-freezing temperatures.
A fire in southwest Berlin caused a major power outage on Saturday, affecting around 45,000 homes and 2,200 commercial entities in four districts. according to to the network operator Stromnetz Berlin.
The cause was identified such as a fire on a cable bridge over the Teltow canal near the Lichterfelde power station, which damaged several cables.
Since then, around 10,000 homes and 300 businesses in Berlin’s Lichterfelde district have been restored, Stromnetz Berlin said, although 35,000 homes and 1,900 businesses remain affected.
The grid company said power to all customers is not expected to be restored until Thursday afternoon, at a time when Berlin is experiencing snowy conditions and daily subzero temperatures.
Local authorities attributed the power outage to an arson attack by Vulkangruppe (Volcano Group), a left-wing extremist group.
The Volcano group would have released a letter shortly after the attack, claiming responsibility for the incident. They said their actions targeted the fossil fuel-based energy industry, citing the climate crisis And building artificial intelligence infrastructure. CNBC was unable to independently verify the letter.
“The contemptuous attack on our power grid was not left-wing extremism. It was left-wing terrorism, and it must be clearly declared as such,” Iris Spranger, Berlin’s interior minister, said at a news conference Monday.
“Here, the collateral damage to the life and limb of #Berlin residents was deliberately accepted,” Spranger said, according to a Google translation of his comments posted on X.
The access road to a closed gas station is blocked due to a power outage. After a fire on a cable bridge, 50,000 homes and 2,000 businesses in southwest Berlin lost power.
Alliance in pictures | Alliance in pictures | Getty Images
The power outage occurs approximately four months after a suspected arson on power lines in southeast Berlin affected around 50,000 homes.
Group of volcanoes previously claimed responsibility for an attack on the power supply of Tesla’s gigafactory near Berlin in 2024. incident strength Elon MuskThe company must stop production for a brief period.
