Grrr, tssjak, bafff. Grrrr, tssjak, bafff. With great care, the operator scoops rubble with a shovel and turns 180 degrees to carefully drop the contents onto the street. Firefighters dig through the catch with great precision with pitchforks. A dining room chair with a leg broken off. A clothes rack. A shirt. And especially a lot of rubble. They step two meters forward when the rubble has been tipped, two meters back when they have finished. Then another shovel scoops it up and throws it into a large pile of debris, drainpipes and splintered wood. They were once houses, once people lived there.
But don’t call it demolition, says the spokesperson for the fire brigade who watches at the Tarwekamp in The Hague on Sunday morning, it is “sorting”. By removing the debris one bucket at a time, an attempt is made to secure any evidence. And, just as importantly, an effort is being made to rule out that there are more victims under the rubble than the five dead that were recovered on Saturday. To be on the safe side, a black coffin is ready. It remains empty on Sunday.
Left: A burnt out car at the Tarwekamp in The Hague. Right: Debris will be cleared with a shovel on Sunday, after which firefighters will dig through the catch with pitchforks, looking for any evidence and to rule out that there are any more victims under the rubble.
Photos: Bart Maat
A day after the devastating explosion at the Tarwekamp in The Hague, calm, professionalism and care prevail. The chaos of Saturday morning is gone, when the fire was still being extinguished and local residents feared for the lives of their neighbors. Their shock has moved from the street to behind the curtains. On Sunday, mainly emergency workers walk through the streets. Bystanders are kept at a good distance.
Detectives will go door to door on Sunday looking for camera images. Structural experts are monitoring to ensure that the rest of the building does not collapse. Firefighters and forensic experts from the police are looking for material that can say something about the causes of the explosions that destroyed five homes. And when on Sunday afternoon Mayor Jan van Zanen shows Prime Minister Dick Schoof and Minister David van Weel (Justice, VVD) around the disaster area, he says at the front of the building, where you best see what is no longer there: “I think this side the most moving.”
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Café: gone. Bridal shop: gone. ‘Help, help!’ it sounds, from the flat at Tarwekamp
Big flash
Quarter past six, Saturday morning. In the Tarwekamp a soft bang is first heard, then there is silence for ten seconds. Then another soft bang. Eight seconds of silence. And then a big flash lights up the street, there’s a huge bang and immediately after that the sound of collapse. In NRC This weekend, several local residents told what they experienced. Perry van der Gugten sat upright in his bed. He thought a rocket had hit, he said. A few apartments away, Simona Garattini thought: the war has begun. Peter Jansen thought about fireworks. The windows shook, wood splintered, car alarms blared.
Several local residents, including Jansen, ran outside to the building – they wanted to help. But they saw almost nothing, due to the thick smoke. The heat of the flames kept them from entering the building, according to the voices they heard. A child called for his mother.
The first emergency services who arrived a few minutes later managed to remove four injured people from the destruction, two were still in serious condition on Sunday evening. Then it became too dangerous for them too. The flames were too high, the building too unstable. Firefighters came from all over The Hague and surrounding areas, and air ambulances were flown in.
Meanwhile, a car went up in flames behind the apartment building. And local residents said that a car had driven out of the street at high speed around the explosion.
These are two indications why the police do not rule out that there was a crime. Detectives therefore started a criminal investigation on Saturday morning. Another, specialist investigation team is trying to identify the five fatal victims. This has not been successful so far, unit chief Karin Krukkert of the Hague police said during a press conference on Sunday evening.
Gas explosion?
What caused the explosions? It is likely that they took place in the basement of the building, said a person involved in the investigation around the crash site on Sunday. He deduced this from the damage to surrounding buildings: the air pressure went from inside to outside and from bottom to top. First the floor of the ground floor would have collapsed, possibly that of a bridal shop, after which the two floors above that – residential houses – also collapsed. Three houses have completely collapsed, while the facades of two others are still up. You can look right into the kitchen and a wardrobe.
But it is unclear what exactly exploded, let alone why and who is responsible for it. The disaster therefore stands in stark contrast to an apparently similar explosion in Rotterdam at the beginning of this year. It soon became clear that something was wrong. Local residents had regularly seen vague types, it had smelled. And among the debris, canisters of chemicals were found, as well as equipment used in drug labs. It eventually turned out to have been a cocaine laundry. But it is still unclear whether it also caused the explosion that killed three people.
Left: Prime Minister Dick Schoof and David van Weel, Minister of Justice and Security, visit the Tarwekamp in The Hague together with Mayor Jan van Zanen. Right: Bystanders are kept at a good distance and try to get a glimpse of the devastation in the Wheat Camp from behind fences.
Photos: Bart Maat
In The Hague the answers are less clear. A gas explosion? An (intact) butane gas tank was found outside the building, but no gas was smelled there on Saturday morning NRC recorded over the weekend. If there had been heavy fireworks, remains of them would have been found in the area. There are also no concrete indications for the existence of a drug lab: for example, local residents say they have seen nothing suspicious around the building, and there seemed to be little suspicious material among the debris – such as jerry cans.
“All scenarios are taken into account,” Chief Public Prosecutor Margreet Fröberg said on Sunday evening. “Everything is being investigated.”