Rescuers rushed Friday to help people trapped in their homes in the town of Erftstadt, southwest of Cologne. “It’s important that we show solidarity for those from whom the flood has taken everything.” “In the hour of need, our country stands together,” Steinmeier said in a statement Friday afternoon. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was “stunned” by the devastation caused by the flooding and pledged support to the families of those killed and to cities and towns facing significant damage. In neighboring North Rhine-Westphalia state officials put the death toll at 43, but warned that the figure could increase. The water level in the Maas, as the Meuse is known in Dutch, reached its maximum forecast height in Maastricht on Thursday night but stayed below what authorities had termed the “doom scenario”, averting widespread flooding.BERLIN (AP) - At least 110 people have died in devastating floods across parts of western Germany and Belgium, officials said Friday, as search and rescue operations continued for hundreds more still unaccounted for or in danger.Īuthorities in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate said 60 people had died there, including 12 residents of an assisted living facility for people with disabilities in the town of Sinzig who were surprised by a sudden rush of water from the nearby river Ahr. While they have so far suffered no loss of life, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands were also severely affected, with flash floods sweeping through the Swiss villages of Schleitheim and Beggingen, several towns in the Grand Duchy evacuated on Thursday, and thousands told to leave their homes in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht. Residents of some towns, including the resort of Spa, which has been under water since late on Wednesday, were being accommodated in tents. The army has been sent to four of the country’s 10 provinces to help with rescue operations and evacuations, along with teams of emergency workers dispatched from Italy and France. “There are a number of dikes on the Meuse where it is really touch and go whether they will collapse,” she said. Verlinden said water levels on the Meuse running into the Netherlands remained critical. Most of the dead were found around Liège, a city of 200,000 people, despite an order for residents of central districts and areas bordering the Meuse River to evacuate. While she said it was too soon to blame the floods and preceding heatwave on global heating, Nullis said the climate crisis was “increasing the frequency of extreme events while many single events have been shown to be made worse by global warming.”īelgium’s death toll has risen to 27, with another 20 still missing. “Some parts of western Europe …… received up to two months of rainfall in the space of two days,” World Meteorological Organization spokesperson Clare Nullis said. “Only if we decisively take up the fight against climate change will we be able to limit the extreme weather conditions we are now experiencing,” he said.Įxperts said such disasters were likely to happen more often due to climate change. Steinmeier called for greater efforts to combat global warming. The interior minister, Horst Seehofer, said Germany “must prepare much better” in future, adding that “this is a consequence of climate change”. The German weather service DWD said it had passed on the warning to local authorities, who should have been responsible for organising any necessary evacuations. Hannah Cloke, a hydrologist, told Politico the disaster was “a monumental failure of the system”. Many people in the Ahrweiler district of Rhineland-Palatinate remain unaccounted for, although efforts to contact them were being hindered by damage to phone networks.Įxperts said the European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) issued an extreme flood warning earlier this week and questioned why the toll was so high. Officials warned the figures could rise further. One person died in Berchtesgadener Land, a spokeswoman for the Bavarian district told Agence France-Presse. The Ruhr river in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, before and after the flooding The Ruhr river in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, before and after the flooding.Īuthorities in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate said that 110 people had died there, including at least 12 residents of an assisted living facility for people with disabilities, while neighbouring North Rhine-Westphalia put the death toll at 43.
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