Dutch police got wrecked by fireworks this year. Officers across the Netherlands faced an insane level of violence on New Year's Eve, with police union head Nine Kooiman reporting she was directly targeted with explosives during her Amsterdam shift, calling the situation unprecedented. Incidents were nationwide, including petrol bombs thrown at cops in Breda and Rotterdam's Eye Hospital, treating fourteen people, ten of them kids, for firework-related eye injuries with two needing surgery. Separate firework incidents in Rotterdam killed a seventeen-year-old boy and a thirty-eight-year-old man, while in Bielefeld, Germany, two eighteen-year-olds died from homemade fireworks.
A major fire also engulfed the historic Vondelkerk church in Amsterdam, a Neo-Gothic basilica designed by architect Pierre Cuypers who also designed the Rijksmuseum. The church's fifty-meter-high tower collapsed and the roof was badly damaged, though the main structure might survive. The cause is still unknown.
This all happened despite a pending ban on consumer fireworks set for 2026, with the Dutch Pyrotechnics Association noting a record one hundred twenty-nine million euros was spent on them this season.
A major fire also engulfed the historic Vondelkerk church in Amsterdam, a Neo-Gothic basilica designed by architect Pierre Cuypers who also designed the Rijksmuseum. The church's fifty-meter-high tower collapsed and the roof was badly damaged, though the main structure might survive. The cause is still unknown.
This all happened despite a pending ban on consumer fireworks set for 2026, with the Dutch Pyrotechnics Association noting a record one hundred twenty-nine million euros was spent on them this season.
