Several people are injured in a tornado on the Kiel Fjord. Roofs were damaged. If things went differently, things could have been a lot worse, experts say.
Kiel – A tornado tears people into the Kiel Fjord, others are injured by objects flying around – the pictures of the event on Wednesday evening lead to fear of terrible consequences.
Six people are injured and roofs damaged, but according to experts, the force of nature could have caused significantly worse damage if it had not happened.
If the tornado had passed through the city center, roof tiles would have been able to fly through the area like projectiles, said tornado expert Andreas Friedrich from the German Weather Service (DWD) on Thursday of the German press agency. “In terms of strength, however, according to initial evaluations, it was a rather weaker tornado.”
When trying to save a rowboat from the water, six people were injured on the popular Kiellinie promenade, according to the fire department, on Wednesday evening, three of them seriously. According to the fire brigade, victims were “completely mixed up” and people also fell into the water. The natural event damaged roofs in the districts of Meimersdorf and Gaarden. There were a total of two dozen fire brigade operations.
Destructive force of the tornado
“We got away with it with a black eye,” says meteorologist Andreas Villwock from the Geomar Research Institute in Kiel. “But that was of course very close.” DWD expert Friedrich estimates the rotation speed of the tornado at 118 to 180 kilometers per hour. This goes hand in hand with “destructive power”. On the ground, however, he only moved at a speed of 10 to 20. According to evaluations, the trail of the damage caused by the tornado that formed in the south of the city is about seven kilometers long. Most of the time he moved over poorly built-up areas.
Angela Rose is one of those affected from the Meimersdorf district in the south of Kiel. “It rained first, then it was quiet,” recalls the 60-year-old. “All of a sudden there was a mega whistling noise and there was a terrible bang.” It was terrible. At first she thought that the windows of the apartment building had been destroyed. Instead, the roof was covered and the dormer window was pushed aside by the tornado.
According to the fire brigade, other roofs in Meimersdorf and also in the Gaarden district were damaged. From the south of Kiel, the tornado moved in the evening towards the fjord, close to the ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems and German Naval Yards shipyards on the east bank, past the keel line on the west bank. After the incident in front of the First Kiel Rowing Club in 1862, the tornado dissolved shortly behind the popular seal pool in front of the Geomar Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research on land, according to videos.
No sign of climate change?
The climate researcher Mojib Latif also has his office in the Geomar building. He himself was not in Kiel at the time. Latif sees no sign of climate change in the occurrence of the natural phenomenon. “I wouldn’t be making a link to global warming now,” says Latif. “It’s a rare phenomenon that comes up every now and then, but it doesn’t mean a new quality.”
But in view of the pictures, Latif speaks of a terrifying scenario. “Tornadoes always have an enormous potential for damage.” Kiel got off lightly. “Tornadoes are small-scale. But if you are unlucky you can devastate entire streets and people can be killed, ”said Latif. “When they appear on the water, it is like a lucky coincidence, unless a ship is currently sailing there.” In this respect, everything could have turned out worse. “Luck in misfortune, I would say.” The ferry to Gothenburg leaves Kiel every day at 6.45 pm – shortly before that, the tornado raged on Wednesday.
The problem with tornadoes is that you can’t predict them at all, Latif said. “With the right weather conditions, they can always arise.” On May 5, 1973, a tornado also swept through Kiel – at that time, however, through the city center. One person died, there were more than 100 injured. The storm caused damage of around 15 million euros, and Kiel’s main train station and the shipyard were also affected.
Axel Harms experienced the tornado at that time first hand in his upper floor apartment in the Hassee district. “The whole thing took maybe two or three minutes,” said the 74-year-old of the German press agency. “But the damage was immense.” The tornado swept through the kitchen, hall, bedroom and living room. “The bedroom door had a glass cutout, which of course broke. The broken pieces of course fell into the cot. ”Together with his wife, he removed the broken pieces from the face of his daughter Nicole, who was sleeping there. His family survived the tornado unharmed, and the little daughter did not suffer any scratches either. dpa
