After leftist activists suspected arson at a power station on Wednesday cut off tens of thousands of households in southwestern Berlin, the area was reconnected to the electricity grid on Wednesday, the longest in the German capital since World War II.

The news was a good one for the many affected individuals who, ever since January 3, had been without power and heating as a result of the cut-offs. Berlin Mayor Kai Wegener said so.

“The gradual, complicated, and slow operation to restore power, which began at 11 a.m. (1000 GMT), was a complex operation,” he said.

On the first day of the month, on Saturday, a cable duct was destroyed above one of the canals, shutting off power to some 45,000 homes and over 2,000 businesses in the southwestern areas of the city, when the city temperature was freezing.

The far-left, Volcano activist group, which in 2024 announced it had attacked a power pylon outside the Tesla factory in Berlin, said it was responsible.

The German army was invited to assist the citizens who had difficulties with the outage that also included mobile phone services, heating, and trains.

The long-term backlash has seen some politicians push to have greater investments to cushion the infrastructure of the capital, particularly given warnings by the domestic intelligence agency of increasing threats by left-wing militants.