The baby
The nightmare scenario of a fire in a packed German tenement block has been captured by one photograph. It shows a small baby in free fall through smoke-filled air. His eyes are closed and his arms are outstretched, as if reaching out for someone. The ground is far, far below. There are no safety nets or blankets, but a forest of arms is already stretching upwards to catch him.
The baby wasn't the only one to fall through the air like this. "People screamed out of open windows. Parents threw their children down, towards the hands of policemen. Then they jumped too," one eyewitness said. But it was the baby that held the world's horrified gaze.
PHOTO: AFP
Within hours of Sunday's blaze it was reported that the baby boy, Onur, had survived. A split second after his uncle threw him from the third floor of the flaming building, a police officer managed to catch him, saving him from hitting the concrete street.
Police confirmed that baby Onur, who is around six months old, was released from hospital yesterday and is doing well.
The police officer
PHOTO: AFP
The police officer, whose identity has not been released, but whose fast reflexes have generated headlines such as "The wonder of Ludwigshafen," was one of 500 emergency workers who raced to the blaze.
"Our colleague was injured as he dived to save the fast-falling baby. His actions meant the baby didn't hit the ground," said Ludwigshafen police spokeswoman Simone Eisenbarth. "He is still recovering. The experience left him in shock and he is having counseling to come to terms with the trauma." He and many of his colleagues are still off duty following the house fire, in which nine people died, including five children and a pregnant woman.
It has been described as the worst fire in western Germany since the World War II. Some 60 people were severely injured and many more were treated by emergency services outside the building on Danziger Platz.
The local mayor honored the rescue services, saying they risked their lives and performed ubermenschlich, or superhuman tasks.
The parents
With a scream, Onur's uncle let the baby fall. The mother cried uncontrollably. Then both jumped out of the smoke-filled window after the child, according to eyewitness reports. The pair, like the majority of people in the building, are Turkish. The police said they are recovering from their injuries. Onur's mother is still in hospital.
The building
The block of flats was more than a century old. It was home to three Turkish families and 24 people were registered as living there.
On Sunday, Ludwigshafen, like towns and cities across western Germany, was in the midst of its annual carnival celebrations, replete with a colorful procession and lots of drink. "The carnival route went right by the building. It seems the flats were crammed with visitors as friends and relatives had come over to celebrate and see the procession," one official said.
Its staircase was made of wood, which went up in flames instantly, trapping everyone. "We had to give up on searching inside. After three or four minutes the stairs collapsed," said firefighter Peter Friedrich.
Kenan Kolat, president of the Turkish organization TBB, yesterday joined family and friends of the victims for a minute's silence by their former home. He described his shock at the desolate remains of the building.
"I have just got back from the site and it was gutted. A ruin. Firemen were carrying away parts of the building to try to find out what happened," he said. "The mood here is so distraught. Some of the children who died were so young, too young to understand. They were just starting out in life. It is tragic. I met a man who lost two children and his wife in the blaze. He was speechless. But what is there to say? He had done his best to help them."
The Bild newspaper published a picture of a three-year-old standing beside his two-year-old brother in a buggy. "Kamil and Kenan. They have not survived," read the caption.
The fire
Germany has been awash with rumor and specu-lation about how the fire started. One young Turkish girl told the N24 television channel that she had seen a man setting fire to a stick near to the house. Someone injured in the blaze told ambulance staff there was a loud bang, like an explosion.
The tragedy has raised fears among Germany's Turkish community of a targeted attack, and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has echoed their concerns. On Turkish television, he said the country did not want a repeat of 1993's firebomb attack on a house in Solingen, in the far west of Germany, in which five Turks were killed. "After the racist acts of violence in the past the question arises: was this fire an accident or not?" he said.
A delegation headed by State Minister Mustafa Said Yazicioglu would soon leave for Germany to hold talks about the fire, he added.
If it was arson, it may well have been a racially motivated attack, but at the moment, the shell of the building is at risk of caving in, hampering the investigating team's search for evidence. "The roof is being lifted off to take some weight away from the weak structure. It is essential for our work that the building doesn't collapse," a member of the local police force said. Turkey is also sending in a team of investigators to try to find out what happened.
"At the moment we don't even have a vague suspicion or lead about what might have caused this fire," admitted Simone Eisenbarth from the press center of the Ludwigshafen police. She said she had taken phone calls from across Europe.
The photographer
The image of the falling baby was taken by 43-year-old web designer and sport photographer Rene Werse, who happened to be walking past the platz after the carnival.
Werse, who had been taking pictures of the procession, snapped as the baby was mid-air. The picture was beamed worldwide by news agencies. He told a German web magazine how it slowly dawned on him what was happening.
"As I came past the house there was nothing to see, no smell of smoke, but then I saw lots of people on the balconies and at the windows. They were shouting and breaking through the windows," he said.
"The drama wasn't clear from the outside of the building, but rather from the people themselves. There was pure panic on their faces."
May 18 to May 24 Pastor Yang Hsu’s (楊煦) congregation was shocked upon seeing the land he chose to build his orphanage. It was surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the only way to access it was to cross a river by foot. The soil was poor due to runoff, and large rocks strewn across the plot prevented much from growing. In addition, there was no running water or electricity. But it was all Yang could afford. He and his Indigenous Atayal wife Lin Feng-ying (林鳳英) had already been caring for 24 orphans in their home, and they were in
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday delivered an address marking the first anniversary of his presidency. In the speech, Lai affirmed Taiwan’s global role in technology, trade and security. He announced economic and national security initiatives, and emphasized democratic values and cross-party cooperation. The following is the full text of his speech: Yesterday, outside of Beida Elementary School in New Taipei City’s Sanxia District (三峽), there was a major traffic accident that, sadly, claimed several lives and resulted in multiple injuries. The Executive Yuan immediately formed a task force, and last night I personally visited the victims in hospital. Central government agencies and the
Australia’s ABC last week published a piece on the recall campaign. The article emphasized the divisions in Taiwanese society and blamed the recall for worsening them. It quotes a supporter of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) as saying “I’m 43 years old, born and raised here, and I’ve never seen the country this divided in my entire life.” Apparently, as an adult, she slept through the post-election violence in 2000 and 2004 by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the veiled coup threats by the military when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) became president, the 2006 Red Shirt protests against him ginned up by
As with most of northern Thailand’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) settlements, the village of Arunothai was only given a Thai name once the Thai government began in the 1970s to assert control over the border region and initiate a decades-long process of political integration. The village’s original name, bestowed by its Yunnanese founders when they first settled the valley in the late 1960s, was a Chinese name, Dagudi (大谷地), which literally translates as “a place for threshing rice.” At that time, these village founders did not know how permanent their settlement would be. Most of Arunothai’s first generation were soldiers
RSS