Weeks to repair riot damage to Eindhoven CS: ProRail

It will take at least eight weeks to repair the damages rioters did to Eindhoven Central Station on Sunday, a spokesperson for rail manager ProRail said to ANP. "And that while the station was recently completely renovated and was only renamed Central Station a year ago. What happened here is unprecedented by Dutch standards. It is deeply, deeply sad," the spokesperson said.

An illegal protest against the coronavirus restrictions currently in place got out of hand in Eindhoven city center on Sunday. Rioters vandalized a large part of the city center, including the Central Station. The police resorted to tear gas and water canons to disperse them.

According to the ProRail spokesperson, rioters smashed windows, destroyed the piano in the station hall, set a ProRail car on fire, looted a Jumbo store, and took the store's cash register. "They smashed the shop to pieces," the spokesperson said. "Really scandalous."

Dozens of ProRail workers are already working on restoring the station to its pre-riot conditions. "We have cleared up the biggest mess," the spokesperson said to ANP. The glass shards were swept up and the broken windows and doors removed. "But repairing all the high windows, for example, will take weeks. Especially with the restoration: these are high windows, not average pains. They have to be tailor-made."

On Monday morning, ProRail CEO John Voppen, NS CEO Marjan Rintel, Eindhoven mayor John Jorritsma, and State Secretary Stientje van Veldhoven of Infrastructure and Environment visited Eindhoven Central Station, to show support for the staff. "Bizarre what these people have been through and the fear they had to feel," Van Veldhoven said on Twitter afterwards.