At the Garzweiler lignite mine, activists stopped and occupied a hydraulic excavator belonging to the energy company RWE near the town of Lützerath on Wednesday. A wall should be erected with the excavator to mark a shift in the operating limit of the opencast lignite mine, said an RWE spokesman.
The police in Aachen announced that their contact officers were on site. These communication forces are in conversation with the activists and the two excavator occupiers. That has proven itself in the past.
Opponents of lignite mining live in mobile homes, squats, tents and tree houses in the small town of Lützerath, which belongs to the town of Erkelenz, near the quarry edge. They want to prevent the site from being excavated for opencast lignite mining in order to protect the climate. The last original resident had sold to RWE in the spring.
Garzweiler is RWE's open-cast lignite mine in the northern lignite mining area. In addition to Erkelenz, the area also includes the cities of Mönchengladbach, Grevenbroich, Jüchen and Bedburg.
