Lucie Rychla
December 29th, 2016

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The New Year’s celebrations are just two days away and the Danish police warn citizens against illegal fireworks that are increasingly being sold online.

Last year, 22 people were injured by illegal fireworks.

In five of these cases the injuries were so severe that the patients had to be transported to a specialised hospital.

In 2014, three people died following an incident with a particularly powerful firework, the so-called chrysanthemum bomb.

Last week, the police seized 69 such bombs as well as 10 Roman candles, 4 bomb rockets and three 30-shot batteries at a location near Vejen in South Jutland.

Unlike illegal products, legal fireworks must carry the CE mark and must be correctly labelled with details of safety rules for use.

READ MORE: New firework rules make for a short display

More child accidents
Meanwhile, more children are getting injured in Denmark by experimenting with fireworks – illegal or not.

Last year, hospitals treated 97 children for fireworks injuries – the most in the past 8 years.

Some 47 percent of them were aged 7 to 11.

Most of these young kids got injured during a daytime either on December 31 or January 1.

Child accidents accounted for 37.9 percent of all fireworks injuries last year – 5.2 percent of them were caused by illegal fireworks and 42.3 percent of them involved bomb rockets.

In six out of ten cases the kids ignited the fireworks themselves and did not wear safety glasses.

READ MORE: Hard-hitting campaign to feature families of illegal fireworks victims

Ban the sale of fireworks
With the higher number of accidents, it may not come as a surprise that one in four Danes would ban the sale of fireworks to the general public, reveals a Gallup survey conducted for Berlingske.

Several countries, including Australia and some states in the US, have already banned the sale of fireworks to the public, while others have banned the sale of firecrackers.

Instead, these countries organise large public fireworks shows.

In Denmark, the sale of fireworks dropped significantly after an explosion in a fireworks factory in Seest near Kolding in 2004.