1st LD Writethru: Power fully restored after five-day blackout in southwestern Berlin


By Chu Yi

BERLIN, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Electricity has been fully restored in southwestern Berlin following a five-day blackout that left thousands of households without power, authorities confirmed late Wednesday in a statement declaring the situation resolved and issuing an all-clear.

Earlier in the day, Berlin's senator for economic affairs Franziska Giffey announced that power had been reconnected to all affected households as of 2:10 p.m. local time. However, some residents continued to report outages into the evening before the final confirmation was sent out.

About 45,000 households and more than 2,200 businesses lost power early Saturday after cables leading to a power station were set ablaze, triggering Berlin's longest post-war outage.

A group calling itself Vulkangruppe (Volcano Group) posted a statement online on Sunday claiming responsibility, saying it had "successfully sabotaged" infrastructure linked to a gas power station in Lichterfelde.

Berlin's governing mayor, Kai Wegner, described the incident as "a terrorist act" at a news conference on Tuesday.

Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office is investigating the case on suspicion of terrorism, German news agency dpa reported on Tuesday. The authority said it suspects offenses including membership in a terrorist organization, unconstitutional sabotage, arson, and disruption of public services.

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