HUNDREDS MISSING IN EUROPE FLOODS
Death toll from devastating floods across parts of western Germany and Belgium rose to 125 yesterday
TThe flash floods this week followed days of heavy rainfall which turned streams and streets into raging torrents that swept away cars and caused houses to collapse.
he death toll from devastating floods across parts of western Germany and Belgium rose above 125 yesterday, as the search continued for hundreds of people still unaccounted for.
Authorities in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate said 63 people had died there, including at least nine residents of an assisted living facility for people with disabilities.
In neighbouring North RhineWestphalia state officials put the death toll at 43, but warned that the figure could rise further. Some 1,300 people were still reported missing, though authorities said efforts to contact them could be hampered by disrupted roads and phone connections.
In a provisional tally, the Belgian death toll has risen to 12, with 5 people still missing, local authorities and media reported early yesterday.
The flash floods this week followed days of heavy rainfall which turned streams and streets into raging torrents that swept away cars and caused houses to collapse across the region.
Expressing sorrow
Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Joe Biden expressed their sorrow over the loss of life during a news conference at the White House late Thursday. The long-time German leader, who was on a farewell trip to Washington, said she feared that “the full extent of this tragedy will only be seen in the coming days.”
Rescuers were rushing yesterday to help people trapped in their homes in the town of Erftstadt, southwest of Cologne, where several houses were at risk of collapse after floodwaters laid bare the foundations.
Three people were rescued from the Wurm River in Heinsberg county late Thursday.
The governor of North RhineWestphalia state, Armin Laschet, called an emergency Cabinet meeting yesterday. The 60-yearold’s handling of the flood disaster is widely seen as a test for his ambitions to succeed Merkel as chancellor in Germany’s national election on September 26.
The German army has deployed 900 soldiers to help with the rescue and clear-up efforts.
Homeless
Thousands of people remain homeless after their houses were destroyed or deemed at-risk by authorities, including several villages around the Steinbach reservoir that experts say could collapse under the weight of the floods.
Across the border in Belgium, most of the drowned were found around Liege, where the rains hit hardest. The Belgian Defence Force said it had deployed helicopters and personnel to assist with rescue and recovery efforts amid reports that the river was expected to rise several feet, threatening a dam.
The storms and resulting high water also battered neighboring Switzerland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg as a slowmoving weather system threatened to dump even more rain on the inundated region overnight and early yesterday.
In the Netherlands, soldiers were sent to help with evacuations in Limburg province, where at least one nursing home had to be cleared, according to the Dutch news outlet NU.nl.
Intense rain in Switzerland led the country’s weather service to warn Thursday that flooding would worsen in the coming days. It said there was a high risk of flooding on Lake Biel, Lake Thun and Lake Lucerne, and noted the potential for landslides.
Ambitious blueprint
The devastation caused by the severe weather came just days after the European Union announced an ambitious blueprint to pivot away from fossil fuels over the next nine years, as part of plans to make the 27-country bloc carbonneutral by 2050. And environmental activists and politicians were quick to draw parallels between the flooding and the effects of climate change.
But the immediate focus Thursday remained the rescue efforts, with hundreds of firefighters, emergency responders and soldiers working to save people from the upper floors and rooftops of their homes, fill sandbags to stem the rising water and carry out searches for the missing.
“We have no exact numbers of dead but can say that we have many people who have become victims of this flood,” Laschet told reporters Thursday.
“Many people lost everything that they own after the mud flowed into their homes,” added Laschet.
The flooding in North RhineWestphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate was some of the worst in decades, after several days of steady rain dumped more water than could be absorbed by the ground and sewage systems.
The police in Koblenz said 18 people had died in the heavily hit Ahrweiler district, where the Ahr river burst its banks, inundating the town of Schuld with murky pale brown water. Six houses collapsed and several others threatened to give way, police said.