A large-scale power failure temporarily paralyzed the south of Cologne on Wednesday night. At 2.45 a.m. there was a voltage drop for a short time due to a fault in an upstream network, said a spokesman for the responsible provider. As a result of the power failure, according to the police and fire brigade, a flame was visible from afar on a flare in a refinery operated by Shell in the Godorf district.
“The flame will certainly burn for a while, that’s part of the safety concept,” said a fire department spokesman on Wednesday morning to the German Press Agency. All measurements regarding possible pollutants or soot particles in the air were negative. At 9:34 a.m. on Wednesday, the Cologne fire brigade lifted the warning to the population.
Because the combustion smoke could cause odors and soot deposits in the city of Cologne and in neighboring Leverkusen, the fire brigade had warned the population as a precaution. Although there is no acute danger, citizens should keep the windows and doors closed and switch off the ventilation and air conditioning systems, it said at night. The warning app Nina had also been activated.
As the company Shell, the operator of the refinery, announced in the morning, the plants at the Cologne-Godorf site of the Energy and Chemicals Park Rhineland were affected by the power failure. As a result, there was “more visible flare activity with smoke development and noise emissions”. Shell’s incident team then informed the relevant authorities.
According to Shell, there could be flare-ups again and again in the coming days due to the plants being put back into operation. “The flare is essential to refinery safety and is required by law. For example, when plants are started up and shut down, large amounts of gas can be produced that would be burned by the flare,” said Jörg Nielsen, Shell spokesman for the Rhineland Energy and Chemicals Park.
