Germany is still looking for hundreds of missing in bad weather

Published on : 07/16/2021 – 07:26

Help is busy finding the missing. Germany is without news of several hundred people after the floods that devastated the west of the country and killed 81 people, unheard of since the war. “I fear that we do not see the full extent of the disaster that in the coming days,” warned, Thursday, July 15, Chancellor Angela Merkel from Washington, where she is visiting.

“The floods of death” headlines the daily Bild, the most widely read in Germany, after the torrential rains that fell in several regions, sowing desolation and terror among residents surprised by the flash floods.

A still provisional assessment

Belgium, with at least 9 dead, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, where several districts of Maastricht had to be evacuated, were also severely affected by the bad weather in Europe. But it is Germany which pays the heaviest price with 81 dead, according to the latest assessment of the authorities.

It is likely to climb due to the number of people still missing in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, the most affected.

In the latter region alone, the authorities said they still had no news of 1,300 people in the worst-hit canton, that of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler. However, a spokeswoman quoted by Bild put this figure on the account of the disturbances of the telephone network which prevents being able to reach many inhabitants.

Concretely, “we are still counting on 40, 50 or 60 missing persons and when you have people who have not given any sign of life for so long (…) we must fear the worst”, declared his minister of ‘Interior, Roger Lewentz, on SWR TV. “As a result, the number of victims is likely to increase further in the coming days,” he warned.

In addition, it is expected to continue to rain in parts of the west of the country. And the level of the Rhine and several of its tributaries is rising dangerously.

The army mobilized

Nearly a thousand soldiers have been mobilized to help with relief and clearing operations in towns and villages, all of which offer the same spectacle of desolation: streets and houses under water, overturned cars, uprooted trees.

Many neighborhoods remained, in addition, Friday, cut off from the world. In Ahrweiler, several houses literally collapsed. Under the rubble, the city gives the feeling of having been the victim of a tsunami.

Euskirchen, a little further north, is probably one of the most affected cities, with at least 20 dead on the spot. The city center, usually pretty, looks like a field of ruins, the facades of houses literally torn apart by the floods.

“Where does all this rain come from? It’s crazy,” said AFP Annemarie Mueller in Mayen, contemplating her flooded garden from her balcony. During the night, “it made such a noise and given the speed at which it was going down, we thought it was going to break down the door.” “It’s a disaster, a tragedy,” Angela Merkel summed up from Washington. The torrential rains swelled rivers, tore up trees, flooded roads and houses.

Climate change

These bad weather have placed the issue of global warming at the center of the electoral campaign, which is in full swing in Germany in view of the legislative elections of September 26 at the end of which Angela Merkel will leave power. “These extreme weather vagaries are the consequences of climate change,” said Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, for whom Germany must “prepare much better”.

A warmer atmosphere retains more water and can cause extreme rainfall. These can have particularly devastating consequences in urban areas, with poorly drained waterways and construction in flood-prone areas.

All the candidates compete for promises. “This means that we have to speed up climate protection measures – at European, national and global level,” proclaimed Armin Laschet, candidate for Merkel’s conservative party and favorite to succeed him in view of the polls. He promised “a national mobilization to repair the damage”.

Neighbors of the most affected German regions, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg are also affected. In Belgium, four people are still missing. The army was deployed in four of the ten provinces of the country to take part in the relief efforts and in particular in the numerous evacuations. Tents have been made available to relocate residents of Spa, the spa town under water since Wednesday.

With AFP