German police to evict climate activists from coal village

BERLIN (AA) – Climate activists are continuing their protest in the western German village of Lutzerath to block the expansion of a coal mine.

Hundreds of police officers were deployed at the area on Tuesday ahead of a planned eviction of the village occupied by the activists.

Dozens of protesters erected barriers, chained themselves together to block access to the village, while the police tried to tear down the barricades.

Earlier, environmentalist groups announced that they will resist plans to expand the open-cast coal mine, warning that this will have “catastrophic consequences” for the environment.

The German energy giant RWE is planning to demolish the village of Lutzerath as part of a plan to expand the Garzweiler coal mine’s extraction area to mine 280 million tons of lignite between 2023 and 2030.