At least 120 people have died and around 1,300 people are still missing across western Europe in the wake of extreme rainfall, bursting rivers, and heavy flooding that devastated parts of Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.
The bulk of the casualties were in the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, where authorities say some mobile networks are still out of service, making it impossible to contact people on the ground. Some 114,000 people remained without power Friday. Most of the 1,300 people unaccounted for are in the northern part of Rhineland-Palatinate.
The stories and photos coming out of the area are ghastly. Floodwaters swept through a disabled care home in a town south of Cologne, killing 12 of the 35 residents as they slept. The village of Schuld, population 700, was almost entirely destroyed by floods, and dozens are still missing there after houses collapsed.
“In some areas, we have not seen this much rainfall in 100 years,” Andreas Friedrich, a German weather service spokesman, told CNN. He also said that “in some areas we’ve seen more than double the amount of rainfall which has caused flooding and unfortunately some building structures to collapse.”
Authorities say they are taking in calls from people trapped in their homes by the flood but aren’t able to send rescue crews to get them. A minister for the state of Rhine-Westphalia said rescuers had carried out “about 30,000 missions” airlifting people from flooded and destroyed homes and buildings. A hospital on the banks of the Maas River in the Netherlands, which overflowed its banks and caused damage in multiple areas, is preparing to evacuate 200 patients in hopes of avoiding more flooding.
“The network has completely collapsed. The infrastructure has collapsed. Hospitals can’t take anyone in. Nursing homes had to be evacuated,” a spokeswoman for the regional government of Cologne told Reuters.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said this “could be the most catastrophic flooding our country has ever seen” and has declared July 20 a national day of mourning even as the toll of the disaster is still becoming clear.
Some 114,000 Western German Households Without Power After Floods
‘Like a war zone’: Stunned Germans count cost of floods
Europe floods: Rescuers race to find survivors as hundreds remain missing
1 comment:
This hurts me a lot, because I lived in NRW for ca. 40 years, about 30 km away from the worst damage. We still have family living there and near Wuppertal also. But I hope that it will awaken many to turn to the Lord!
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