The death toll from disastrous flooding in Western Europe rose above 150 persons on Saturday as rescue workers toiled to clear up the devastation and prevent further damage.
Police said that more than 90 people are now known to have died in western Germany’s Ahrweiler county, one of the worst-hit areas, and more casualties are feared.
On Friday, authorities gave a death toll of 63 for the whole of Rhineland-Palatinate state, where Ahrweiler is located. Hundreds of people are still missing.
Western Germany has suffered the most brutal impact of the deluge that also pummelled Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, leaving streets and homes submerged in muddy water and isolating entire communities.
In Germany’s worst-hit regions of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, residents who fled the deluge were gradually returning to their homes and scenes of desolation.
“Within minutes, a wave was in the house,” said baker Cornelia Schloesser of the torrents that arrived overnight Wednesday in the town of Schuld, carrying her century-old family business with it.
“It’s all been a nightmare for 48 hours, we’re going round in circles here but we can’t do anything,” she said, surveying the heaps of twisted metal, broken glass and wood that have piled up at her former storefront.
Immense task
In the affected areas, firefighters, local officials and soldiers, some driving tanks, have begun the colossal work of clearing the piles of debris clogging the streets.
“The task is immense,” admitted the mayor of Solingen, a city in the south of the Ruhr area.
The real scale of the disaster is only now becoming clear, with damaged buildings being assessed, some of which will have to be demolished, and efforts under way to restore gas, electricity and telephone services.
The disruption to communication networks has complicated efforts to assess the number still missing.
“We have to assume we will find further victims,” said Carolin Weitzel, mayor of Erftstadt in North Rhine-Westphalia, which experienced a terrifying landslide triggered by the floods.
Roger Lewentz, interior minister for Rhineland-Palatinate, told local media up to 60 people were believed to be missing.
The government has said it is working to set up a special aid fund, with the cost of damage expected to reach several billion Euros.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who returned Friday from a trip to Washington overshadowed by the disaster, vowed to provide “short- and long-term support from the government” to stricken municipalities.
She has not yet travelled to the scene from the capital Berlin, but her spokesman said Friday she was in close contact with regional leaders about “a visit soon to the scene of the catastrophe”.
Belgian toll expected to rise
Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander de Croo on Saturday headed for the scene of what he has branded “unprecedented” flood damage in the country’s east, as officials warned the death toll would increase. (France 24)
