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The heavy rain that started Wednesday has not stopped, but the death and devastation it has brought to Europe is already phenomenal. By Friday, 106 lives were claimed in Germany and hundreds of people are still missing. Belgium saw at least 20 deaths.
Images from across Europe, and especially from Germany, show sinkholes devouring homes and buildings. Streets once lined with neat houses and shops have been gutted, and sewer and power lines are now exposed. Cars were dragged by the flood waters and overturned upside down or against trees. The houses were evacuated, their contents mixed with mud pits.
Fierce rivers also swept cell phone towers and fiber optic cables, further complicating rescue efforts and efforts to locate people reported missing.
Even some of the sets that have long protected the Netherlands,
Germany appears to have suffered the worst of death and damage from runaway rivers. Officials in the Rhineland-Palatinate district of Ahrweiler, where the village of Schuld is located, said late Thursday that 1,300 people had not been heard from after the Ahr River crossed the communities. The dreadful expectation is that most of the casualties do not survive.
The rippling waters of the Erft River seized part of three houses and a castle in Erftstadt-Blessemtown on Friday. Residents who had not yet escaped or who had ignored emergency orders and returned to see what was left of their property were stranded and had to be rescued by boat.
Thousands of people are now homeless in the affected areas of Germany.
Politicians from all parties are calling for the suspension of election campaigns in Germany.
The flood came the same week that Europe announced its ambitious plan to move away from fossil fuels to mitigate climate change and become carbon neutral by 2050. Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, was among many who attributed the destruction to the need for agreement. with climate change.
However, when we take precautions against climate change, we can keep the events we are experiencing now within limits.
Photographs from the devastated areas show how far the flood has gone beyond these limits.
Friday
In Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany, a once bustling shopping street has become a dump for flood-damaged goods.
The demolition in the Blessem district of Erftstadt, Germany, has been completed.
Aare transformed an outdoor dining patio in Bern, Switzerland, into a pond.
A damaged bridge over the Ahr in Schuld, Germany.
A wheel is the only clear clue that a vehicle is buried under mud and debris at Schuld.
In Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, a tree crashed into another car, which was being driven by the flood waters.
The rail tracks in Jemelle, Belgium, ballasted with water, took on the appearance of a roller coaster.
A church and cemetery after the flood in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler.
Schuld, one of Germany’s most devastated towns, was in ruins on Friday.
Schuld’s surviving buildings are now surrounded by debris from structures swept away by the Ahr.
With high water levels not seen since 1911, parts of the Netherlands, including Wessem, were flooded.
Thursday
He was stranded by flood waters near a train station in Kordel, Germany.
When the Meuse River flooded in Liège, Belgium, people turned to inflatable boats.
Ahr sweeps away the demolition it bought to Insul, Germany.
A campsite in Roermond, the Netherlands, is flooded.
Only a large truck and a front loader could travel on some streets in Valkenburg, the Netherlands.
A lookout at Lake Lucerne in Switzerland became part of the lake itself.
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