The restoration of power to southwestern Berlin continues at a frustrating pace following a widespread outage affecting tens of thousands of residents. As of Tuesday, Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) confirmed that 25,500 households remain without electricity, highlighting the severity of the disruption and raising questions about the city’s resilience to infrastructure attacks.
While Wegner emphasized the prioritization of reconnecting elderly care facilities and reopening supermarkets – stating that the “essential supply chain” has been fully restored – the protracted recovery underscores vulnerabilities within Berlin’s power grid. The restoration efforts are complicated by the deliberate nature of the damage. Authorities have attributed the initial blackout, which struck around 6:00 AM on Saturday, to arson targeting a substation by the “Volcano Group” a known left-wing extremist organization.
The incident, impacting approximately 45,000 households and 2,200 businesses across the affluent districts of Nikolassee, Zehlendorf, Wannsee and Lichterfelde, exposes a troubling pattern of politically motivated infrastructure sabotage. The vulnerability of critical utilities to such attacks raises significant concerns about the escalating tactics employed by extremist groups and the potential for further disruption of essential services.
While Wegner expressed confidence in resolving the situation by Thursday afternoon, the delay has fuelled public discontent and drawn criticism from opposition parties. They are questioning the adequacy of security measures surrounding Berlin’s vital infrastructure and demanding a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding the arson and a comprehensive review of preventative security protocols. The incident is likely to intensify political debate surrounding law enforcement capabilities and the perceived rise in extremist activity within the capital.
The gradual restoration of mobile network functionality, also mentioned by Wegner as a positive development, only partially alleviates the crisis, as residents still face significant disruption to daily life.