The acute danger in the flood areas seems to have been averted for the time being. There is now room for political reappraisal. The criticism of civil protection and Interior Minister Seehofer is getting louder.
Euskirchen / Berlin – With the decrease in the acute danger in the flood areas, the debate about failures in civil protection is gaining in intensity.
A British scientist accused the German authorities of “monumental” system failure during the flood disaster. Parts of the opposition in the Bundestag directed violent criticism against Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU), to whom the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Aid (BBK) is assigned.
Among other things, Seehofer took a look at the damage to the Steinbachtalsperre in North Rhine-Westphalia, which is now threatened by a dam burst. There the situation relaxed as in most other flood areas in western Germany and in Bavaria, for example.
From the point of view of the hydrologist Hannah Cloke from the University of Reading in England, a lot has gone wrong in Germany. She told the Sunday Times that clear indications that were issued within the framework of the European early warning system EFAS four days before the first floods had apparently not reached the population. The federal states are responsible for disaster control in Germany. The federal government has no direct responsibilities here. In the event of natural disasters and particularly serious accidents, however, the federal states can, for example, request help from the Technical Relief Organization (THW) or the Federal Police.
Researcher Cloke was involved in setting up EFAS (European Flood Awareness System), which was founded after the devastating floods on the Elbe and Danube in 2002. With the help of meteorological and hydrological data as well as computer models, floods and flash floods are predicted. The aim is to gain time in order to better protect the population.
In Rhineland-Palatinate alone, 117 severe weather deaths were counted by Monday, according to police. In North Rhine-Westphalia, 46 deaths were recently known as a result of the storm.
BBK President Armin Schuster said with a view to criticism that they are currently in the “Rescue, recovery, sheltering et cetera” phase. He went on to say on Deutschlandfunk: “I practically forbade my employees to criticize maneuvers. We’re helping now. “
Seehofer, who traveled on to Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler in Rhineland-Palatinate after his visit to the Steinbachtalsperre, said that disaster control in Germany was well positioned. However, the federal, state and local governments should also jointly consider what lessons can be learned from crisis management. It would be wrong to “persist in the arrogance” that nothing can be improved.
The Chancellor candidate of the Greens, Annalena Baerbock, called for a new formation of the disaster control with more responsibility for the federal government. This need has been emerging for a long time. “Emergency situations like this flood or forest fires are increasing and often break out in many places at the same time,” she said in an interview with “Spiegel”. “Help only works when everything works together. This requires an authority that bundles all forces and pulls helicopters or special equipment from all over Germany or neighboring EU countries as quickly as possible. “
FDP parliamentary group vice-chairman Michael Theurer sees serious failures. “The timely warnings of the meteorologists have not been adequately communicated to the citizens either by the authorities or by public service broadcasters,” he told the German press agency. “The picture is of a considerable system failure for which the Federal Minister of the Interior Seehofer bears direct personal responsibility.”
The FDP parliamentary group requested a short-term special meeting of the interior committee. Seehofer had to explain what the federal government knew exactly and when – and what was done to ensure disaster control.
Left party leader Susanne Hennig-Wellsow even brought a request for resignation into play. “Seehofer bears the political responsibility for the disastrous failure of the federal government,” she said according to a statement.
Retweet WDR from the fire department
There were also rays of hope from the disaster areas in western Germany. A breaking of the Steinbachtalsperre in Euskirchen near Cologne could be prevented, said North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister and Union Chancellor candidate Armin Laschet, who was visiting there with Seehofer. The dam had “reached an uncritical water level”, announced the Rhein-Sieg district. This means that there is no longer any acute danger that the dam could break. This means that the evacuation measures for parts of the Swisttal and Rheinbach areas could be lifted.
The city of Erftstadt, which is also in the region, informed that the more than 100 vehicles trapped on a main road by the flood, apart from two trucks, had been recovered. No dead were discovered.
Some railway lines blocked by the effects of severe weather can also be used again, for example from Dresden (Saxony) to Prague (Czech Republic). In the course of the week, shipping on the Rhine near Speyer (Rhineland-Palatinate) and Karlsruhe (Baden-Württemberg) will also be released again. The weather forecast for the coming days promise relaxation: it should remain largely dry. dpa
