MIn the middle of the Easter traffic jam in front of the north portal of the Gotthard road tunnel in Switzerland, activists stuck themselves to the road on Good Friday. The police temporarily closed the tunnel. It is the gateway for motorists to the southern canton of Ticino and on to Italy. At 10.30 a.m. they were off the road, temporarily arrested and reported, the police reported.
Long before the action, a 15-kilometer traffic jam had formed in front of the tunnel in the early morning. The wait was more than two and a half hours. By midday, according to the TCS automobile club, the traffic jam had grown to 17 kilometers and the waiting time was almost three hours. Passenger trains travel through the Gotthard Base Tunnel at around 200 kilometers per hour. The tunnel journey takes about 20 minutes.
According to the police, there was a scuffle between angry drivers and the six people who had glued themselves to the street. They belonged to the “Renovate Switzerland” group (roughly: renovate Switzerland). They are said to have entered the roadway on foot via a freeway exit. According to the police, the activists involved were between 19 and 60 years old. The group calls for civil resistance for the climate. On Twitter, she wrote above a photo of the action: “Now is the time to act as a citizen to ensure a future worth living for us and our children.” With “care and patience” the police have the members of “Renovate Switzerland” detached from the road.
Similar climate action caused chaos in Hamburg on Maundy Thursday
In Germany, activists paralyzed Easter travel on Maundy Thursday with a very similar action at the eye of a needle. Members of the protest group “Last Generation” had stuck to the road in front of the south portal of the Elbe tunnel and on the north side of the Elbe bridges. Only after almost five hours did the police release the Elbe tunnel again. Traffic over the Elbe bridges to the city center was able to flow again after just under three hours. From the south, vehicles backed up via the A 255 to the A 1.
The Elbe tunnel and the Elbe bridges are the only ways to reach the metropolis from the south via expressways. West of Hamburg there is only one ferry connection at Stade. East of Hamburg, the bridge of the B 404 near Geesthacht is only accessible to a limited extent due to renovation work. The route through the port to the Freihafenelbbrücke was affected by another action by the “Last Generation”. The police were able to prevent a blockade on Veddeler Damm. One of two lanes was temporarily blocked for use, said a police spokesman. Even after the end of the campaign, the kilometer-long traffic jams initially hardly decreased because travel increased in the afternoon.
According to the traffic control center, traffic on the A 1 from Seevetal-Hittfeld to 20 kilometers in the direction of Lübeck, on the A 7 from Hamburg-Fleestedt to 15 kilometers. Southbound traffic was also affected. One lane in the direction of Hanover was also affected by the closure of two tunnel tubes. Traffic on the A 1 in the direction of Bremen was blocked because drivers could not exit on the A 255 in the direction of the city center.
Vegetable oil spread on the road
The officials not only had to detach the activists from the roadway in front of the Elbe tunnel. According to the police, the fire brigade was also on duty to clean the highway from a liquid – probably cooking oil. The Last Generation said supporters of the group stopped traffic with two vans. Then they sat down on the road in orange safety vests and spread vegetable oil over a large area. In addition, they would have glued themselves to the road with superglue.
According to a video from the “Last Generation”, a police officer is said to have violently torn a glued activist off the street on the Elbe bridges – which the police rejected. From her point of view the glue hadn’t dried yet. Paramedics found no injuries on the man’s hands. There was also anger over the treatment of a journalist by the police. The media representative complained via Twitter that he had been prevented from doing his work. The police said it had to be clarified whether he was actually a journalist or part of the activists.
The group “Last Generation” justified the blockade by saying that the government was not fulfilling its responsibility “to protect our survival and that of future generations”. At the beginning of March, the group demanded that the city of Hamburg join their demands for the formation of a so-called social council to solve the climate crisis. Otherwise, she wanted to “ensure maximum disruption to public order,” she said in a letter to Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD) and the chairmen of the parliamentary groups. The Senate and the factions of the SPD, CDU and AfD had rejected the threats.