German authorities investigate suspected sabotage at power substations

Two incidents that disrupted power distribution systems in the west and east of Germany are being invested as possible sabotage, authorities said.

Multiple explosive devices were found Tuesday morning at a substation near the Jänschwalde coal-fired power plant in Brandenburg in northeast Germany. No general power outage resulted, but a few of the devices caused short circuits, authorities said.

Separately, a short circuit that caused several power lines to go out of service Tuesday evening at the Bergheim power substation near Cologne in western Germany appeared to be a deliberate act, police said, adding there was no general power outage.

“Based on the current state of the investigation, we are not assuming a technical defect, but rather a deliberate act, a crime,” the Essen police said of the Cologne outage, according to German press agency dpa.

RWE, a company operating coal power plants that utilize the Bergheim substation, said five coal-fired units with a combined capacity of 4,200 megawatts were taken offline and are expected to be working again by the weekend.

German power infrastructure has previously been affected under similar circumstances. Suspected left-wing extremists set fire to high-voltage lines near a power plant in southwest Berlin in January.

The country is on high alert after the German government on Tuesday blamed Russia for an attempted attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport on Aug. 4 using a drone laden with explosives.

Brandenburg Interior Minister Jan Redmann suggested possible foreign involvement, telling German media that authorities “cannot rule out any perpetrators” in Tuesday's attack.

“This is a hybrid threat we are currently experiencing, and therefore we cannot rule out the possibility that foreign powers are behind it,” Redmann said, according to dpa.