{"id":666813,"date":"2026-01-01T12:33:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T12:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/666813\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T12:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T12:33:11","slug":"blaze-at-amsterdam-church-amid-unsettled-dutch-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/666813\/","title":{"rendered":"Blaze at Amsterdam church amid ‘unsettled’ Dutch New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

A huge inferno gutted a 19th century Amsterdam church during a New Year’s Eve which saw two dead from fireworks and “unprecedented” violence against police.<\/p>\n

The blaze broke out in the early hours at the Vondelkerk, a tourist attraction that has overlooked one of the city’s top parks since 1872.<\/p>\n

The 50m high tower collapsed and the roof was badly damaged but the structure was expected to remain intact, Amsterdam authorities said.<\/p>\n

The head of the Dutch Police Union, Nine Kooiman, reported an “unprecedented amount of violence against police and emergency services” over New Year’s Eve.<\/p>\n

\"The
\nThe roof of the historic church was badly damaged<\/p>\n

She said she herself had been hit three times by fireworks and other explosives as she worked a shift in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

Shortly after midnight, authorities released a rare country-wide alert on mobile phones warning people not to call overwhelmed emergency services unless lives were at risk.<\/p>\n

Reports of attacks against police and firefighters were widespread across the country. In the southern city of Breda, people threw petrol bombs at police.<\/p>\n

Two people, a 17-year-old boy and a 38-year-old man, were killed in fireworks accidents. Three others were seriously injured.<\/p>\n

The eye hospital in Rotterdam said it had treated 14 patients, including ten minors, for eye injuries. Two received surgery.<\/p>\n

\"Police
\nPolice intervene to quell unrest in Amsterdam’s Dam Square<\/p>\n

It was the last year before an expected ban on unofficial fireworks, so people bought them in massive quantities.<\/p>\n

According to the Dutch Pyrotechnics Association, revellers splashed out a record \u20ac129 million on fireworks.<\/p>\n

Some areas had been designated firework-free zones, but this appeared to have little effect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A huge inferno gutted a 19th century Amsterdam church during a New Year’s Eve which saw two dead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-666813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115819866110410748","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}