DÜSSELDORF (dpa-AFX) - NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) has called on climate activists to leave Lützerath. This is still possible for peaceful activists at any time without having to identify themselves, Reul said in Düsseldorf on Wednesday. "This is our offer. Protect the climate, but don't protect violent disruptors."

In the morning, 350 people were still unlawfully in Lützerath, he said. Among them was a "medium double-digit number of violent disruptors," Reul said. The police had begun the expected evacuation of Lützerath on Wednesday morning. It had encountered "considerable ground structures" on site that the activists had created to prevent the eviction.

Reul spoke of "monopods, tripods, blockades and barriers." Meanwhile, RWE has erected a 1.7-kilometer fence around the site to prevent further influx, he said. "The operation is going according to plan, the situation is calm," Reul said. However, he added, the operation is still in an early phase.

Police initially encountered the expected resistance, he said. Firecrackers, paving stones and Molotov cocktails flew. After that, the situation calmed down.

Thousands of police officers from all over Germany were involved in the operation. The energy company RWE was responsible for the demolition of the buildings and the clearing of the trees after the eviction. The Lützerath settlement in the Lower Rhine region west of Cologne and Düsseldorf is to be demolished in order to be able to extract the lignite deposits underneath. Lignite is considered particularly harmful to the climate./fc/DP/nas