Police Arrest Co-Owner of Fireworks Warehouse

Dutch police on Friday arrested one of the owners of a fireworks warehouse that exploded last weekend, killing at least 20 people and injuring almost 1,000.

Wilhelm Pater turned himself in a day after an international warrant was issued for him, police spokesman Jan Camphuis said. The second owner, Rudi Bakker, is still at large. Police sought both men for questioning.

Only hours after the arrest, more than 100,000 people walked silently through the soaking streets of Enschede in a memorial procession for victims of the devastating blast May 13. Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, Prime Minister Wim Kok and Mayor Jan Mans were among the masses who came from across the country to pay their respects.

A minute of silence was observed in a park near the flattened working-class neighborhood of Enschede North.

“Thousands of people went through hell in those few moments,” the prime minister told a memorial service. “This disaster dealt a catastrophic blow to the people of Enschede.”

The 2-mile-long procession was led by several victims’ relatives and a group of children. Two children, ages 6 and 10, were killed in the explosion.

Earlier in the day, several hundred uniformed firefighters lined up at the funerals of two firefighters who died battling the blaze. Two more firefighters are to be buried today.

“Four of us did not return,” read a condolence message in the Amsterdam daily newspaper De Volkskrant. “We are stirred, immensely saddened, and barely realize what has happened.”

Firefighters Paul Gremmen, Theo Hesselink, Hans van der Molen and Gerard Oude Nijeweme were called to put out a routine fire in a poor residential neighborhood and were confronted with an inferno. The men were killed when a series of storage bunkers containing 100 tons of explosives went up in an enormous blast that damaged 400 houses.

Identification teams finished sifting through the rubble in search of victims. City officials said 10 people were still missing in the blast, down from more than 200 earlier in the week.