Rain and floods bring deadly chaos to Europe

HEAVY rains and floods lashing western Europe have killed at least 45 people in Germany and left many more missing, as rising waters led several houses to collapse.

Unusually heavy rains also inundated Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium, where at least four people were reported dead.

Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) states were the worst hit in Germany by the deluge, which has caused rivers to burst their banks and threatens to bring down more homes.

At least 18 bodies were recovered in the region around the western town of Ahrweiler alone, police said. Local officials had earlier reported up to 70 people missing. Farther north, the district of Euskirchen in NRW reported 15 dead. Desperate residents sought refuge on the roofs of their homes as helicopters circled above to rescue them from the rising waters.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was “shocked” by the devastation and thanked the “tireless volunteers and emergency service workers” at the scenes. Four of the dead were in the municipality of Schuld south of Bonn where six houses were swept away by floods, a police spokesman in the city of Koblenz said. Several other bodies were recovered from flooded cellars across the region.

The environment ministry in Rhineland-Palatinate warned it expected floodwaters on the Rhine and Moselle rivers to rise with more rainfall. In NRW alone, 135 000 households were without power.

Emergency workers struggled to evacuate people in endangered buildings and two firemen were killed on Wednesday in the line of duty in the towns of Altena and Werdohl.

The German military deployed about 400 soldiers across the two affected states to assist in rescue efforts.

In the city of Leverkusen, a power outage triggered by the storms led to the evacuation of a hospital with 468 patients. Authorities reported that after intensive care patients were moved to other facilities overnight, the other wards would have to be cleared in the course of the day.

Belgium has also seen several days of heavy rain that has caused rivers in the French-speaking region of Wallonia to burst their banks. Four were reported dead.

The southern Dutch province of Limburg also reported widespread damage with rising waters threatening to cut off Valkenburg west of Maastricht.