After a dam broke, parts of the North Rhine-Westphalian town of Wassenberg are under water. The dike association of the neighboring Netherlands sees no connection with the locks there.
Wassenberg / Roermond – The Dutch authorities have rejected the request of the mayor of Wassenberg in North Rhine-Westphalia to open the Rur locks in Roermond.
The Dutch dike association sees no connection between a dam breach on the Rur, because of which 700 people in Wassenberg had to leave their homes, and the closing of the locks on the Dutch side, reported the Dutch news agency ANP.
Mayor Marcel Maurer had named the closing of the locks in Roermond as the cause of the dam breach in the Ophoven district. This led to a backwater and increased the pressure on the German dike. He had asked the Dutch authorities to reopen the locks.
According to calculations by the Dutch dike association Limburg, one thing has nothing to do with the other. The Rur lock in Roermond is always closed at high tide in order to prevent the city from being flooded by masses of water pushing from the Meuse into the Rur. The water from the Rur is then always channeled into the Meuse via a tributary of the Rur, the Hambeek. This means that there is normal water drainage in the Rur without any adverse effects on the German side.
After the dam broke, the district of Ophoven near the Dutch border was partially under water, according to the fire brigade. The situation remained tense on Saturday. The city announced that the water level was stagnating. The Rur has its source in the Eifel and flows into the Meuse near Roermond in the Netherlands. dpa
