A Chinese lantern, launched by a 60-year-old mother and her two adult daughters in a New Year's Eve celebration, caused a fire at a German zoo in which dozens of animals were killed, including eight great apes, authorities said.
Police in Krefeld, near the Dutch border, said the three women had turned themselves in on learning of the disaster, in which five orangutans, two gorillas and a chimpanzee were killed, alongside bats and birds.
The women had bought five lanterns, banned locally and in most of Germany for over a decade, on the internet, believing that they were allowed on New Year's Eve, chief investigator Gerd Hoppmann told a somber news conference Thursday.