Western Europe has been hit by heavy rains in recent days, with flooding causing at least 42 deaths in Germany, and soaring rivers breaking their banks and destroying houses, with many people missing.
Police said the western town of Alweiler (Ahrweiler) area at least 18 people died, extreme weather in large areas of Western Europe disaster, including Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate (Rhineland-Palatinate) and North Rhine-Westphalia (North Rhine-Westphalia) in the floods suffered the most serious damage, the river The rivers rose sharply and broke their banks, destroying houses.
Local officials said earlier that 70 people were missing. Fifteen deaths have been reported in Euskirchen, a little north of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The heavy rains, which have also ravaged neighboring Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium, have reportedly killed four people.
Anxious residents climbed onto rooftops for shelter and waited for help as helicopters hovered overhead to rescue people trapped on rooftops.
Annemarie Mueller, a 65-year-old resident of Mayen, who looked out from her balcony at her waterlogged garden and garage, said her town was not expecting such flooding. The town of Meine is located in the sub-state of Laing-Faal.
She told AFP, “No one saw this coming, where did all this rain come down from? It’s crazy.”
“It was very noisy, it was raining so fast and furiously that at one point we thought it was going to break through the doors.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was shocked by the flooding and expressed her gratitude to the volunteers and emergency workers who worked tirelessly on the scene.
Armin Laschet, head of Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia, canceled a party meeting in Bavaria to inspect the state’s disaster situation.
Laschet, wearing rubber rain boots, told the media in Hagen: “We are with the towns and people who have been ravaged by the floods.”
Police said four people were killed and six houses were swept away by the floods in Schuld, south of Bonn.
In North Laing-Sifaoria, 135,000 households were without power.
The environment ministry in Rhine-Faal sub-state warned that the Rhine and Moselle rivers will continue to rise as heavy rains continue to fall.
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