Experts say water safe at German army base after sabotage scare

Experts say water safe at German army base after sabotage scare

Test results have shown that the tap water at a German military base in Cologne was not contaminated, a military spokesperson said on Friday, two days after authorities briefly sealed off the site to investigate possible sabotage.

Authorities had told soldiers not to drink the tap water after a guard found a hole in a fence near the Cologne-Wahn base's water processing plant on Wednesday.

"The test results show that the safety thresholds under German drinking water rules have not been exceeded," the country's Territorial Command said in a statement. "The water can be consumed again."

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The base next to Cologne airport has 4,300 soldiers and 1,200 civilian employees. It is home to the fleet of military aircraft used for travel by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his ministers.

NATO has warned in the past of a campaign of hostile activities staged by Russia, including acts of sabotage and cyberattacks. Russia has regularly accused NATO of threatening its security.

In June, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the Western military alliance saw a pattern evolving and that recent attacks were a result of Russian intelligence becoming more active.

Several incidents on NATO territory have been treated as suspicious by analysts in recent years, among them the severance of a vital undersea cable connecting Svalbard to mainland Norway in 2022.

German officials said they did not find any trespassers when the searched the site in Cologne on Wednesday, and did not give any indication of who if anyone they suspected.

Soldiers were let back into the site the same day, but had to hold off from drinking the tap water until Friday's all-clear.