Unexploded deadly fireworks found across the country

After causing three deaths on New Year’s Eve, chrysanthemum shells have started turning up all over the country, including Copenhagen

admin

Jan 4, 2015

Chrysanthemum shells, the type of fireworks responsible for three deaths in northern Jutland on New Year's Eve, have started showing up all over the country.

One was found in Copenhagen’s Fælledparken this afternoon. Police sealed off the area and called in the Army’s bomb squad to remove the dangerous item.

Earlier today, residents found a small chrysanthemum shell on a path in Aalborg.

And the Army's bomb squad also removed two of the fireworks from a beach near Hals in Jutland. The fireworks were wet, making the operation to make them safe even more precarious.

Jutland hard hit
Since New Year's Eve, there have been several other reports of chrysanthemum shells endangering the public.

Police in central and western Jutland had to respond after a chrysanthemum shell was left at a recycling centre in Herning. They also said that they suspected that a bus destroyed in Ikast was hit by one of the fireworks.

Meanwhile, someone left 12 chrysanthemum shells at a recycling centre in Zealand. Legal fireworks can be taken to recycling centres, but illegal fireworks are required to be given to the police.

Even more dangerous when wet
The national police force, Rigspolitiet, issued a statement on Sunday imploring people to turn the 'krysantemumbombe' over to the police.

“It is cowardly and could be fatal if you just throw them away where children might find them by accident,” read the statement. “These fireworks become even more unstable when wet.”

Authorities have warned the public for years that it is illegal to set off the chrysanthemum shells in public and that they can be fatal in the wrong, untrained hands.

The deadly fireworks claimed the lives of three men on New Year’s Eve. A 37-year-old man from Assens was killed when a chrysanthemum shell exploded when he tried to light it in his garden. And two men from Hobo were killed after a shell, which they had lit and put into a metal launching pipe, detonated prematurely. Two other men with them were seriously injured and remain in hospital.