Historic 150-Year-Old Dutch Church Goes Up in Flames amid 'Unprecedented' New Years Violence By Ben Brachfeld

An historic 150-year-old Dutch church went up in flames amid “unprecedented” New Year’s Eve violence in the Netherlands.

The Vondelkerk, an 1872 church overlooking Amsterdam’s famous Vondelpark, caught aflame a little before 1 a.m. local time on Thursday, Jan. 1, Dutch authorities said, RTL reports. Homes in the vicinity of the church were quickly evacuated.

By the time the fire was finally under control 10 hours later, at 11 a.m., the church’s 164-foot neo-Gothic spire had collapsed and “only walls” remained intact, De Telegraaf reports.

No casualties were initially reported from the blaze, and the cause of the fire remains unknown and under investigation, The New York Times reports.

The church, designed by Rijksmuseum architect Pierre Cuypers, served as a Roman Catholic parish for nearly a century before being deconsecrated, thereafter being used to host secular events. The building previously caught fire in 1904, which saw the loss of its original tower.

The inferno came as Dutch police faced “unprecedented” levels of New Year’s Eve violence this year.

The chair of the Dutch Police Union, Nine Kooiman, said on X that she and her colleagues were being “pelted” with explosives.

“Unprecedented amount of violence against police and emergency workers,” said Kooiman. “Lots of explosives/fireworks aimed at the colleagues. Myself already pelted three times. Really hope everyone gets home safely.”

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Police arrested some 250 people across the Netherlands as the European nation’s emergency number became overwhelmed, De Telegraaf reported. In Utrecht, southeast of Amsterdam, police reported being “continuously attacked by groups of young people,” per the outlet.

A 17-year-old boy and a 38-year-old man were killed in separate fireworks incidents across the Netherlands overnight, the BBC reported, citing local media.

At a burn unit in Groningen, in the country’s north, 19 patients were treated, including ten under age 15, per De Telegraaf. That’s twice the number of patients treated at the unit after last year’s New Year celebrations.