Heavy rain areas move over Germany. In many regions, basements are full, streets are flooded, and people have to be rescued. A firefighter dies during an operation in the Sauerland.
Berlin – Fully filled cellars, an evacuated retirement home, motorists trapped by masses of water: Heavy rain has led to states of emergency and numerous fire brigades in some regions of Germany. A firefighter dies in rescue work in North Rhine-Westphalia.
In Altena in the Sauerland, emergency services fought against water, earth and debris, as a fire department spokesman reported. From the surrounding slopes, large amounts of water fell onto the city in several places, causing “massive slips”.
The firefighter was killed in the subsequent rescue work. A spokesman for the police in the Märkischer Kreis confirmed this on Wednesday. He drowned in the tragic accident. The WDR had previously reported.
While the situation initially calmed down in some places on Wednesday, North Rhine-Westphalia in particular was still badly affected, especially the state capital Düsseldorf and Hagen in the Ruhr area. North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul spoke of an “extremely difficult situation” in some regions of the state. “The further development is currently not foreseeable with certainty,” said the CDU politician of the German press agency. According to the German Weather Service (DWD), the low “Bernd” will bring heavy rainfall in some regions of Germany in the coming days.
People have to leave houses
The city of Düsseldorf asked residents in the Grafenberg district to leave their apartments on Wednesday due to the threat of flooding. The city announced on Wednesday that around 350 buildings in the Ostparkiedlung were particularly affected by the rising floods in the northern Düssel. A care center was set up for the residents.
In heavy rain, the flat roof of a retail store in a shopping center in Würselen near Aachen collapsed on Wednesday. An injured person was able to save himself, the city said. “Presumably the roof did not withstand the masses of water (…).” The area was searched with rescue dogs, but no other people were discovered in the building.
A retirement home with 76 residents in Hagen was evacuated due to the inflow of water. “The retirement home is very badly affected and has become uninhabitable,” said a city spokesman. Parents were asked not to send their children to daycare and not to use the holiday care at the primary schools. A buried person was rescued with minor injuries. Several drivers were released from their cars, which were trapped by water. There were at least 200 locations. Some parts of the town could no longer be reached. “The people are desperate,” said a spokesman for the Hagen police headquarters.
In other parts of the state, too, brooks turned into torrential rivers. There were landslides, streets were flooded, cellars were full, and rail and road traffic were disrupted. An employee of a retirement home in Mettmann near Düsseldorf was seriously injured by a falling tree and almost drowned. A helper was able to hold the woman’s head above water until firefighters had freed the trapped woman.
Fire brigades in constant use
The fire brigade in Cologne reported 180 weather-related missions. In Dusseldorf she went to around 330 missions. The Rheinmetall Group’s underground car park was also affected – the water there was 40 centimeters high. Firemen worked for hours to protect works of art worth around five million euros in a gallery. In Erkrath, near the state capital, around 100 residents had to leave accommodation for refugees. Flood warning values have been exceeded on numerous rivers in North Rhine-Westphalia.
In Aachen, the historic city center of Kornelimünster was threatened with flooding. According to Reuls, around 3,900 workers have managed almost 2,100 missions across North Rhine-Westphalia. “Many of them are volunteers and are currently working tirelessly to cope with the masses of water.”
In the Saxon Erzgebirge district, a 53-year-old was swept away by a flash flood and was still missing until Wednesday afternoon. The man had tried on Tuesday evening because of the sharp rise in the level of the village stream to protect his property from the masses of water. According to local residents, he was swept away. The search is difficult because of the high water level of the Steinbach and the topographical conditions, according to the police.
Southern Germany also affected
On the night of Monday, an 81-year-old man in Baden-Württemberg is said to have fallen into the Jagst River while working on his house, which caused flooding after heavy rainfall. He was also still missing on Wednesday.
Late on Tuesday evening, a disaster was declared in the Hof district in Bavaria because of the storms with heavy rainfall. He was lifted on Wednesday morning after the situation had eased. More than 50 fire brigades with almost 1000 people as well as 140 members of the Technical Relief Organization (THW) were in constant use to pump water from cellars and to procure sandbags. Streets and cellars were flooded, trees fell, and the power went out in isolated cases.
In Thuringia, too, there was continuous rain and prolonged heavy rain. Several streets in the country have been flooded and cellars have been flooded. In Baden-Württemberg, persistent rain led to flooding on the Rhine and Lake Constance. Shipping near Karlsruhe was blocked on Tuesday evening. The persistent rain also worried cities and communities on the Rhine and Moselle in Rhineland-Palatinate.
According to DWD forecasts, the rains on Thursday will decrease in the west and increasingly move to the southwest and south. However, the amount of water in the area is no longer as pronounced as expected on Wednesday in the west. Thunderstorm heavy rainfalls could not be excluded locally, it said. On Thursday, on the other hand, it looks friendlier in the north and east, where, according to the DWD, the sun is more frequent. dpa
