Noord-Brabant

Large crowds piled up at Utrecht Centraal on Monday evening after a collision between a train and a person took place hours earlier. The incident took place at the train station on track 16, and prompted the evacuation of platforms 15 through 18. Making matters worse, a national outage at one of the country's largest telecom firms hindered the ability to get train service back on schedule.

Several people were arrested last week after death threats were made against a police officer involved in a drug investigation. A criminal group promised “tens of thousands of euros for information about the officer,” according to a police report.

The alleged criminal group threatened to kill the officer in messages published online.

“The Police and the Public Prosecutor’s office take the threat very seriously. Security measures to protect the officer were undertaken,” police said.

At the start of the year, 2,189 people living in the Netherlands were over 100 years of age, of which 85 percent were women. The total number of centenarians faced a 1.6 percent decline from 2017 figures, but it was still slightly better than last year and well over 13-times more than 1970's official numbers.

If figures continue along the steady trend since 1970, the Netherlands could have 3,520 residents over a hundred years of age by 2030. Statistics Netherlands estimated that 2,811 of those were expected to be women.

The Netherlands entire contingency of 28 Apache helicopters was grounded due to an apparent “defect” in the tail rotor, the Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday. The problem was discovered during maintenance work, according to the ministry’s Defense Helicopter Command.

“Shutting down flight programs is a common measure for this type of observation,” the ministry said in a statement. The nature of the problem and its effects were under investigation and not revealed.

A 50-year-old bicyclist was shot in the leg on Saturday afternoon in Eindhoven. The victim, from Nuenen, was cycling on a path along the Wolvendijk at about 4 p.m. when he suddenly discovered he was wounded.

He was treated at an area hospital and released later that day, police said. In the ensuing investigation, evidence technicians found “several projectiles from a firearm” not far from where the victim was found.

A demonstration by controversial anti-Islam organization Pegida near a mosque in Eindhoven turned more sinister on Sunday, with ten counter-protestors taken into custody. Four police officers suffered minor injuries in confrontations down the road from the Al-Fourqaan Mosque.

Some 300 canoes were destroyed in a fire at canoe rental company Rofra in Valkenswaard during the early hours of Tuesday morning. The police and fire department suspect arson. "There is someone who is really angry at me", Rofra owner Michel Geenen said to newspaper AD.

The fire at the company on Molenstraat started just after midnight. The fire brigade responded with two fire trucks and two water tanks. Firefighters managed to get the fire under control within 30 minutes, but not fast enough to save any of the canoes.

A large fire destroyed a detached farmhouse on Driehoevenweg in Heukelom, Noord-Brabant on Thursday morning. The residents managed to get out of the burning house safely. The parents and their children stood on the street watching their home go up in flames, AD reports.

The farmhouse was completely destroyed in the fire, which broke out at around 5:00 a.m. A shed containing a lot of valuable DJ equipment also burned to the ground.

A woman was killed and three people injured in two separate fires in the province of Noord-Brabant during the early hours of Monday morning.

The woman died in a fire in her home on Kleine Dreef in Veldhoven. The cause of the fire, which broke out at around 5:15 a.m., is not yet known, according to ANP.

Three people were injured when a fire broke out in an apartment complex on Hoofdstraat in the town of Liessel. The severity of their injuries is not yet clear. According to NOS, two of the victims were taken to hospital. 

The police discussed the case of missing Jelle Leemans on Opsporing Verzocht on Tuesday. Investigators believe the Belgian man may have been murdered during a drug deal in the Netherlands in November 2013. The police received 35 tips about the missing man following the broadcast.

Leemans became involved in drug dealing after losing his job in 2013, according to the police. He regularly crossed the border to the Netherlands to buy large amounts of drugs. He was last seen on November 21st, 2013.

D66 alderman in Tilburg Marcelle Hendrickx is under fire for a tweet she posted last week saying that a vote for the Noord-Brabant FvD leader Hans Smolders is a vote for racism, hatred and division. In a debate on the matter on Monday night, she said that she regrets that the tweet was misunderstood, but she stands by the content, AD reports.