Animals killed in German zoo fire
Apes were among more than 30 animals killed after a fire raced through a zoo minutes into the new year.
BERLIN — A fire raced through a zoo in western Germany in the first few minutes of the new year, killing more than 30 animals, including apes, monkeys, bats and birds, authorities said. Police said paper sky lanterns launched nearby to celebrate the arrival of 2020 were probably to blame.
Several witnesses saw cylindrical paper lanterns with little fires inside flying in the night sky shortly after midnight Wednesday near the Krefeld Zoo, Gerd Hoppmann, the city’s head of criminal police, told reporters.
The zoo near the Dutch border said its entire ape house burned down and more than 30 animals — including five orangutans, two gorillas, a chimpanzee and several monkeys — were killed, as well as fruit bats and birds.
Two chimpanzees were able to be rescued from the flames by firefighters. They suffered burns but are in stable condition, zoo director Wolfgang Dressen said.
“It’s close to a miracle that Bally, a 40-year-old female chimpanzee, and Limbo, a younger male, survived this inferno,” Dressen said, adding that many of the zoo’s animal handlers were in shock at the devastation.
“This is an unfathomable tragedy,” Dressen said.
He said many of the dead animals were close to extinction in the wild.
The zoo said the Gorilla Garden, which is near its devastated Ape House, didn’t go up in flames and that gorilla Kidogo and six other members of his family are alive.
Germans usually welcome in the new year with fireworks and people are allowed to buy and launch fireworks. Sky lanterns, however, are illegal and uncommon in Krefeld and most of Germany.
Hoppmann said some of the partially burned lanterns had handwritten notes on them. Several people have come forward and are being questioned, police said.