ERKELENZ (dpa-AFX) - On the third day of clearing Lützerath for lignite mining, police this Friday are putting a focus on activists holed up in underground tunnels. "We don't know how stable these underground ground structures are. We also don't know what the air supply is like there," Aachen police chief Dirk Weinspach told WDR on Thursday evening. Accordingly, he said, the situation is dangerous. In the night to Friday, the technical relief organization ended its mission without taking the activists out of the tunnel. In addition, the police want to clear a last occupied house on Friday.

During the night, the climate activists persevered in heavy rain, strong winds and temperatures below ten degrees. Further was not cleared by the police initially. Numerous police officers were still on site. According to a police spokesman, however, they only wanted to take action during the night if activists had to be freed from potentially dangerous positions.

Occupiers of the site, which is to make way for lignite mining, had reported a tunnel on social media on Thursday and warned police to enter the area with heavy equipment. Police confirmed that there were at least two tunnels. However, only one also had activists in it, they said. So far, the police have not been able to get to them. Special forces from RWE and Technisches Hilfswerk must now look at "how the rescue can be carried out in a suitable manner," Weinspach said. "There it will also be important to proceed very carefully and not take any risks." How much this could delay the evacuation of the site, he said, is impossible to predict.

Overall, the police chief expressed satisfaction with the progress of the operation. "The evacuation of the above-ground structures is largely complete," he stressed to WDR. "We have cleared almost all the houses except one. It is the meadow cleared, a large part of the tree houses is cleared. In this respect, not so much remains."

On Thursday, many of the activists' wooden huts and barricades were razed to the ground by excavators. The squatters mostly allowed themselves to be carried away without much resistance during the eviction. Some were close to tears. Two symbolic houses of the former inhabitants of Lützerath were also cleared. There, firecrackers flew in the direction of the emergency forces, as a dpa reporter reported. One officer was slightly injured, according to police. However, the old houses of the village have not yet been demolished.

Even from the tree houses built at heights of up to ten meters, occupants could be brought down by height rescuers without much resistance. Subsequently, police officers cut the holding ropes, so that tree houses crashed into the depths and broke into many individual parts, as a dpa reporter reported.

In the night to Friday, the evacuation initially continued in the darkness. "Objects that have been approached, we are still finishing work," said a police spokesman. Activists who had embedded or chained themselves would also be freed despite the darkness, he added. "In such cases, we have to provide assistance," the spokesman said.

RWE wants to mine the lignite that lies beneath the village of Lützerath, which has long been abandoned by residents. The coal is needed to save gas for power generation in Germany during the energy crisis, the corporation argues. The activists dispute this. In return for politicians clearing the way for the mining of lignite under Lützerath, the coal phase-out in NRW was brought forward by eight years to 2030./mhe/DP/stk