Ten firefighters and two police officers were injured on Thursday in an explosion that damaged an apartment situated in a high-rise building in Ratingen, Germany.
The special forces arrested a 57-year-old person who is believed to be responsible for the explosion and the death of a woman whose body had been found on the premises.
Whether the suspect was injured by the explosion or during the arrest could not be said at this time, a police spokesperson told the German media.
“We fear that there are extremely dangerous developments there,” North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul told the Interior Committee of the Duesseldorf State Parliament.
Before the explosion, the property owners’ association had called the police on suspicion of a helpless person being detained in the apartment.
When emergency services gained access to the place, one of the rooms was already on fire. The suspect, who lived there with his mother, then caused a detonation with an as yet unidentified object.