A midnight celebration in western Germany went horribly wrong early Wednesday when paper lanterns lit to celebrate 2020 caused a fire at a zoo and killed more than 30 animals, including apes, monkeys, bats, and birds. Many of the dead animals were species that are close to extinction in the wild. “People reported seeing those sky lanterns flying at low altitude near the zoo and then it started burning,” said Gerd Hoppmann, the city of Krefeld’s head of police. Authorities were first dispatched to the zoo, which is near the Dutch border, at 12:38 a.m. Only two chimpanzees, 40-year-old Bally and a younger male named Limbo, were rescued from the flames by firefighters. They suffered burns but were in stable condition on Wednesday, said zoo director Wolfgang Dressen. “We have to seriously work through the mourning process,” Dressen said. “This is an unfathomable tragedy.”
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