NOS News•today, 6:48 PM
The festivities around King’s Day seem to have gone off without a hitch everywhere this year. Apart from some smaller incidents and despite some rain here and there, it was mainly pleasant and festive throughout the country.
The Red Cross says that no major incidents occurred in the 120 cities where volunteers were present. The aid organization did not have to scale up anywhere and provided first aid to partygoers on a small scale.
A NOS tour of the major cities also shows that hardly any notable incidents have occurred during King’s Night and Day so far. In Rotterdam “nothing strange was going on”. In The Hague there were “incidents as usual, but nothing special”.
It was full for a while in the center of Utrecht on Friday evening. The municipality called on people to stop coming to the city. After an hour the crowds started to diminish. Many people also came to the city center of Utrecht during King’s Day. During the afternoon, some full party locations were no longer accessible.
Fall from construction scaffolding
There is a 24-year-old man in Amsterdam during King’s Night was injured after a fall from a construction scaffolding at the Westertoren, on the Prinsengracht. The man had gone onto the jetty with four others. All five people in their twenties have been arrested.
Furthermore, climate demonstrators from Extinction Rebellion briefly blocked the A10 in the south of the city, despite a ban imposed by local authorities. The police removed the activists from the road.
Near Amsterdam’s central station, about thirty pro-Palestinian demonstrators sat on a zebra crossing for two hours. There was a brief argument with people who wanted to pass by. The activists left on their own.
No ‘commotion’ in Purmerend
Last night, the center of Purmerend was designated as a safety risk area, due to rumors “in the atmosphere of commotion”. The police were allowed to conduct preventive searches and forbid people from entering the area. In the end nothing happened.
In Urk, a ‘bonfire’ was traditionally made in the early morning. The fire brigade responded to extinguish a scooter that had set fire. A video circulated on social media of a boy who, after lighting a number of fires, also caught fire and ran away with a burning jacket. Bystanders helped him put out the flames and he was not seriously injured.
Passenger flow will start later
The Dutch Railways also see that everything is going well. Like every year, extra and longer trains run. The NS calls it “busy, but manageable” and says that the flow of partygoers started a little later due to the rainy weather.
The usual rugs full of household goods occasionally had to be put under a tarpaulin, but most people were not deterred by the rain. The American ambassador in The Hague reflected on the Dutch flea market tradition in a video in which she wished the Dutch a good King’s Day:
Like every year, there were all kinds of fun games to play at the free markets. Such as throwing cans under the name ‘overthrow Putin’, with cans bearing the image of the Russian president. Most free markets may last until the end of the afternoon.
Local traditions
King’s Day was also a day full of local traditions. In Wijk bij Duurstede it was time again for the annual rubber duck race, a traditional aubade took place in many places and people in some regions took to the streets early to ‘laze around’.
For example in Putten, Gelderland, where about 150 scooters, dirt bikes and quads with either sawn-off exhausts drove around making a lot of noise to wake everyone up. This was done in consultation with the police. This was not the case in the Hoeksche Waard and idleness was stopped with an emergency order.
The party will continue for a while and can be followed via the King’s Day blog.
