The massive rains do not stop: Heavy storms hit parts of Bavaria on Saturday evening. There are two dead in Berchtesgadener Land. The Austrian town of Hallein also experienced bad hours.
Rosenheim – Two dead, houses threatened with collapse, evacuations: on Sunday morning, the full extent of the flood in the Berchtesgadener Land district in Upper Bavaria was revealed.
890 helpers were deployed in the particularly affected locations. The local operations manager Anton Brandner spoke of dramatic scenes: “Vehicles on the streets became the plaything of the masses of water.”
Torrential rains had overflowed the river Ache on Saturday evening and caused slopes to slide. The district declared the disaster. Two people died. A victim died of a natural cause, said District Administrator Bernhard Kern (CSU). But that could also be related to the storm.
Rain is announced for the next few days
The places that were particularly affected were Berchtesgaden, Bischofswiesen, Schönau am Königssee, Marktschellenberg and Ramsau in the far south-east of Bavaria. The fire brigade and other auxiliary workers had to go to up to 500 missions – also to save human lives.
Houses had to be evacuated because they were threatened with collapse. 130 people were brought to safety, including 80 from a settlement in Schönau am Koenigssee, said Kern. Rail traffic between Bad Reichenhall and Berchtesgaden has also been discontinued, some roads are closed.
The situation remains tense because the next rain front has already been announced.
Concern in Passau
The situation in Passau is also a cause for concern. Here the water levels of the rivers rose every hour. As a precaution, the police towed cars from parking lots on the Danube. A police spokeswoman said that residents had failed to repark their vehicles despite flood warnings. “If we don’t tow them away, they’ll swim as far as Austria.”
According to the flood intelligence service, the level of the Danube had risen by almost two meters to 7.80 meters over the course of Saturday. The water level of the Inn rose from 3.30 to 5.40 meters in the past twelve hours.
Hallein in Austria under water
Torrential rain also hit other parts of Austria on Sunday night. The fire brigades were in constant use in Salzburg as well as in Tyrol and the federal capital Vienna, as reported by the APA agency. Civil protection alarms were triggered in the city of Hallein, as well as in Mittersill in Pinzgau and in Kufstein in Tyrol. In the city of Salzburg, flood protection was built along the Salzach
In Hallein, the water masses flooded parts of the old town. A stream had developed into a raging stream in the evening, the police confirmed on Saturday corresponding videos that could be seen on the Internet. According to the fire brigade, there were no reports of missing, injured or even dead people late in the evening.
In Kufstein, people are asked not to leave buildings and to retreat to higher floors. In the urban area, the water from the tributaries of the Inn has already reached the streets. Part of the Felbertauernstrasse was closed due to possible landslides.
In Vienna, heavy rain and thunderstorms caused the fire brigades to be very busy. The firefighters were usually called because of flooded cellars or underpasses, by Sunday morning the professional fire brigade reported over 500 operations. dpa
