Posted on 07/16/2021 8:26:05 AM PDT by blam
At least 1,300 people are still unaccounted for Friday after flash floods in western Germany and Belgium left more than 100 dead and several towns devastated. Rescue efforts continue for the second day as the true extent of this tragedy is only being revealed as floodwaters recede.
According to CNN, 103 people have died in Germany following torrential rainfalls that swept through the country on Wednesday and Thursday. So far, authorities are saying that 1,300 people are missing and the Europe-wide death toll is 117.
The death toll in Rhineland-Palatinate, a southwest German state bordered by France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, has soared to at least 60, the state premier Malu Dreyer said Friday.
Dreyer said there was bad news every hour as rescue efforts continue to find more bodies.
“We have 60 dead to mourn at the moment, and it is to be feared that the number will rise even further,” she told reporters, adding, “We have not yet reached the stage where we can say that situation is easing.”
In North-Rhine Westphalia, a western German state, 43 have been confirmed dead, the state’s Interior Ministry spokeswoman Katja Heins told CNN.
Armin Laschet, North-Rhine Westphalia’s state premier, said the flooding is “a catastrophe of historic proportions,” adding that more fatalities are expected.
Officials believe the high number of people missing was due to a telecommunications blackout after floodwaters knocked out critical telecommunications infrastructure.
Andreas Friedrich, a German weather service spokesman, said the weather event had “very severe precipitation” and was equivalent to about two months of rain.
Axios said, “the rainfall amounts had around a 1% chance of occurring in an individual year, making it a 100-year rainstorm.”
AP reports the German Army dispatched 900 troops to heavily impacted states to assist with rescue efforts.
Thousands of people are homeless as the damage outlined in the tweets below shows entire towns were hit with a wall of water.
On Thursday, Prime Minister @MorawieckiM spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The PM offered all necessary #assistance in connection with the #flood situation in the country. #Poland #Germany #Support
More: https://t.co/gYhEp9H5g0 pic.twitter.com/Fu8LcX44zj
— Poland In (@Polandin_com) July 16, 2021
Here in Germany, dozens have died in floods, hundreds are missing, thousands have lost their homes. It’s devastating. This is the climate crisis unravelling in one of the richest parts of the world — which for a long time thought it would be “safe”. No place is “safe” any more. pic.twitter.com/ECtqpmlYi2
— Luisa Neubauer (@Luisamneubauer) July 16, 2021
Towns in western Germany were devastated by the floodwaters.
Heh, heh...that was my very first thought, too!
Do either of you or anyone else know the name of the town shown in the posted (#10) photo?
If I were a super hero, I’d be Average Woman.
I could go stand next to Bill Gates, ta dah! I can pick and choose, mind you, I don’t want his age, looks, sex, morals, politics, just the money.
Droughts eliminated, storms abated. The possibilities are downright messianic: valleys exalted, mountains low, the rough places plain.
I like mountains and valleys and rough places though.
Sorry, I don’t.
Coincidentally, I got an invitation this morning to a meeting in Dusseldorf in North-Rhine Westphalia next week of WW II expellees from Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland).
Have a safe trip. I spent 7 years in Germany, courtesy of the American taxpayer and the US Army. 3d Armored Division in Hesse.
Blessem. No kidding.
I’m not going to attend. I’d love to go, but the event will be in German and my German is nowhere good enough to be able to understand much. And they only provided one week of advance notice. They also require everybody to wear masks during the session (ugh!).
It would really be interesting because my great grandfather and family were expelled in 1945 and found their way back to their home from the 1890s near Viersen, 25 miles west of Dusseldorf.
That must have been a nice 7 years in Germany for you! Did you learn the language?
I was there for 2 tours, 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87. I had 2 years of German in college about a decade before my first tour and that helped me have a foundation for simple conversations. I knew more than most of my fellow GIs, but was not really what I considered to be fluent. I found that the Germans were easily forgiving of my linguistic mistakes.
Before and After:
All that water is heading to this quarry:
The Guardian has some great photos of the flooding.
Thank you for the location. So there is an existing quarry that were seeing, but enlarged by the flood? I was wondering what set up the erosion while on such flat land.
At least the headlines didn’t state Biblical proportions.
Prayers for those lives lost.
Was there a dam there? Should have had a dam. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.
This is like a gigantic flash flood or a small tsunami in that there is a lot of water moving through areas. It is not like a flood where the waters simply go up and up such as when a river overflows its banks.
There must have been walls of water going through those towns; some of the pics I saw were of buildings where parts had been torn away altogether.
100 year rainfall, about 3-6 inches in 24 hours. As much as 8 inches from what I heard. Whether it creates a 100 year flood is entirely dependent on channeling and land use. When that changes the recurrence period changes.
3-6 inches of rain 24 hours?
That is a walk in the park in Louisiana during hurricane season or any other time of the year.
Nothing like 2 1/2-3 feet of water in your house to make life interesting.
Interesting. I would have thought Germany would have a VERY mature water control system. This sounds like the kind of numbers you get in a dam breach or something. Wonder how much rain they got to cause this and where it went awry?
Yours are good questions! I don’t know the answers, but I imagine that there will be many asking and investigating to prevent such an occurrence in the future.
May all those who have died rest in peace, and may God comfort and aid the survivors.
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