Heidelberg germany flood12/12/2023 ![]() ![]() "I fear the full extent of this tragedy will only be seen in the coming days," she said. "I extend my empathy and my heart goes out to to people who lost loved ones," Merkel said. "I include Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands." Merkel said "it is a day that is characterized by fear, by despair and suffering" as "small rivers turned into flooded, devastating torrents." German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Joe Biden addressed the disaster as they held a joint press conference in the White House. The dam was built in the 1930s and extended in the late 1950s. The power company has warned it may switch off the power as a precaution. Villages near the dam have already been evacuated, but the warning has now been extended along the river to towns including Heimbach, Nideggen, Düren, Jülich, Linnich, Kreuzau, Hürtgenwald and Niederzier. The 77.2-meter-high (253 feet) Rur Dam has overflown, meaning there could be worse flooding further along the Rur river (separate from the more-northern Ruhr River). The banks of a nearby river had burst, causing the district to flood.Īccording to the emergency services, the water in the residential area had infiltrated into several cellars as well as garages.Ī dam in the heavily hit Eifel district of Germany has overflown, prompting fears of further flooding in the coming hours, local authorities said. Allgäu affectedĪ residential area in the city of Wangen im Allgäu in the German state of Baden-Württemberg suffered severe flooding late on Thursday evening. Weather forecasters say more rain is expected in the coming days. The flooding has heavily impacted transport in the region, which lies near the borders to Belgium, Luxembourg, France and the Netherlands. Most of the deaths have been reported in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate. This article was last updated at 0430 UTCĪt least 58 people have died in parts of western Germany amid heavy rains and flooding, local police said on Thursday. 1,300 people unaccounted for in Ahrweiler region, possibly due to mobile networks being down.Several have also been killed in neighboring Belgium, with severe flooding in the Netherlands as well.Helicopters from several states are rescuing people stranded on the top of buildings.At least six houses collapsed and up to 25 more are in danger of caving in.Authorities have said at least 58 people have been killed in Germany.Weather experts said that rain in the region over the past 24 hours had been unprecedented, as a near-stationary low-pressure weather system also caused sustained local downpours to the west in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.Click here for more up-to-date information on flooding and rescue efforts in western Germany ![]() "I can't even guess at how much the damage will be," said Karl-Heinz Sammann, owner of the Kitchen Club discotheque. In Wuppertal, known for its overhead railway, locals said their cellars had been flooded and power cut off. In addition to the fatalities in the Euskirchen region, another nine people, including two firefighters, died elsewhere in North Rhine-Westphalia.įurther down the Rhine river, the heaviest rainfall ever measured over 24 hours caused flooding in cities including Cologne and Hagen, while in Leverkusen 400 people had to be evacuated from a hospital. Traffic on the river Meuse is also suspended as the major Belgian waterway threatened to breach its banks.ĭownstream in the Netherlands, flooding rivers damaged many houses in the southern province of Limburg, where several care homes were evacuated. The rain also caused severe disruption to public transport, with high-speed Thalys train services to Germany cancelled. In Belgium, around 10 houses collapsed in Pepinster after the river Vesdre flooded the eastern town and residents were evacuated from more than 1,000 homes. "We will be faced with such events over and over, and that means we need to speed up climate protection measures, on European, federal and global levels, because climate change isn't confined to one state," he said during a visit to the area.Ĭlimate and the environment are central themes in the election campaign, in which Laschet is going head-to-head with Social Democrat candidate Olaf Scholz and Annalena Baerbock of the Greens. Pope Francis also extended his condolences to the victims and their families.Īrmin Laschet, the conservative candidate to succeed Merkel as chancellor and premier of the hard-hit state of North Rhine-Westphalia, blamed the extreme weather on global warming. In Washington for a farewell visit before she steps down following a federal election in September, Merkel said weather extremes were becoming more frequent which required action to counter global warming. ![]()
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