Jubilee Post News & Views
Special Desk
In what could be said as one of the worst devastation, 42 people were reported to have died and many are still missing following severe floods in western Germany. Evacuation process has been started by security forces.
Buildings and cars got washed away in swift water, said people eyewitness to the scene. Record rainfall in parts of western Europe has caused major rivers to burst their banks.
The Netherlands has also been badly hit, with flooding rivers damaging many houses in the southern province of Limburg.
Malu Dreyer, chief of Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate state said, “There are dead, missing and many people still in danger.” “All of our emergency services are in action round the clock and risking their own lives,” she said.
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is in the US ahead of a meeting with President Joe Biden, said she was shocked by the disaster. At least 19 people died in the Ahrweiler district of Rhineland-Palatinate, after the Ahr river, which flows into the Rhine, burst its banks.
Police helicopters and hundreds of soldiers have been deployed to some areas to help stranded residents. Earlier, police said dozens of people were waiting on rooftops to be rescued.
About 25 houses are in danger of collapsing in the district of Schuld bei Adenau in the mountainous Eifel region, where a state of emergency has been declared according to the reports.
The mayor of Liège, Belgium’s third-largest urban area after Brussels and Antwerp, has urged everyone to evacuate. Those unable to leave should move to the upper floors of their buildings, she said.
The Meuse river which flows through the city is expected to rise by another 150 cm, despite being on the verge of overflowing already. Local officials are also concerned that a dam bridge in the area may collapse.
