More fireworks seized

Since Danes entered the new millenium with a big bang, they haven't given up the attraction for extremely powerful fireworks, some reaching the force of bombs, and just as dangerous.

Already Wednesday night a 72-year-old woman died after one of the powerful explosions was set off in the stairwell of her apartment building in the Danish town of Randers. The force of the explosion was so powerful that apartment doors were blown into eight of the apartments.

The door of her apartment was blown all the way into her bedroom where she was sleeping. She was so badly injured and in shock that she later died in hospital.

"After the new millenium, something changed, and now each year people want more powerful fireworks than the last year. It's a new trend where the goal is a bigger and bigger explosion," says Søren Krøigaard, director of the Danish Safety Technology Authority and leader of a special task force working on the problem of illegal fireworks.

"We used to not see deaths from fireworks. Most of the injuries were to eyes and fingers. Now there are serious injuries from the extremely powerful fireworks which are legal only in the hands of professionals," says Krøigaard.

His task force is intensifying cooperation between the police and various government agencies to work on the problem.

The task force has recognized the changed situation in the fireworks business. It's not just the import of illegal fireworks from Germany that is a problem-it's also the spread of dangerous professional fireworks which are legally imported but end up in the wrong hands.

The illegal sales take place usually at a bar, on the internet or between friends who "know someone".

Another of the task force's findings are that there has been a significant increase in the amount of fireworks in Denmark compared to previous years. Where imported fireworks used to come through Germany, now shiploads are coming direct from China to Århus harbor in Denmark.

This indicates the fireworks business is well organized and not just a bunch of loose cannons.

"The fireworks business could do something about the situation if they wanted to," concluded Søren Krøigaard, "but there's a lot of money in it."

"The profit margin is more than 500 percent. That's to say, if you buy 1,000 krone worth of fireworks in China, you can sell them for 5,000 krone in Denmark," he says.

He says the total annual sales of fireworks is more than DKK 500 million (EUR 67 million). Illegal fireworks make up approximately 10 percent of that or DKK 50 million (EUR 6.72 million).

Søren Krøigaard says he is satisfied with the work the task force has done, but the results are yet to be seen.

"We made a plan for what should have been done by New Year's Eve, and many of the goals were reached, but it will be New Year's Day before we'll know the final results of our work," says Krøigaard.