Germany launched a military disaster alert on Friday after catastrophic floods that killed at least 100 people, at least 1,300 are still missing and several thousand are homeless.
Aerial images of the worst-affected areas showed that torrential rains swept away homes and roads, smashing abandoned boats and mobile homes against stone bridges.
About 44 people are known to have died in North Rhine-Westphalia and 63 in the neighboring Rhineland-Palatinate in western and southwestern Germany. Helicopter rescue teams are bringing the trapped people into safe homes; Other teams are working to restore roads and mobile coverage.
Flooded town of Irfastadt after heavy rain. Photo: Post / Bezirksregierung Kaln / AFP via Getty
As the rains receded and floodwaters began to recede on Friday, the town of Sjöld in southwest Germany was revealed as a mud-strewn disaster area that some locals said was worse than World War II.
«I’ve been here for 80 years, but I’ve never seen anything like this,» an elderly man in the village of Schold told local radio.
With only 660 residents, the village survived the plague and the Thirty Years’ War. On Wednesday evening, the Ahr River blew its banks, smashing six half-timbered houses to matches, and razing the foundations of others.
Residents of a nearby special needs nursing home were less fortunate: 12 people died when water from the local river – 100 meters away – rushed into their rooms.
«At the request of the firefighters, the night watchman went to the building next door but could not return and could not provide them any further assistance,» said Stefan Muller, the house manager.
About 60 kilometers northwest of Irvinestadt, drone images showed a slow-moving disaster on Friday: a local gravel quarry collapsing in floodwaters, taking local buildings with them.
«At the moment you’re just crying,» said local woman Maren Olegschlager. «The block of water came in only half an hour, and we don’t have a house or a garden anymore.»
Local Reverend Albrecht Rubik said people were traumatized by the flash floods on Wednesday evenings: «They’re trying to call friends and family, they can’t cross, and they simply don’t know how they are.»
German political leaders reacted with shock to the flash floods, considered the worst in a century.
«Your fate strikes in my heart,» President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told survivors and families of those killed: «It is a tragedy that so many have lost their lives, I am stunned.»
Federal Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer raised the alarm of Germany’s military disaster on Friday, in a rare step indicative of the seriousness of the situation, as it lifted tight post-war restrictions on the army’s deployment at home.
«This means that decisions can be made on the ground where they are needed,» she said. “I think in such a situation, decentralization is important and will be the key to success.”
Heavy floods in neighboring France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands forced the evacuation of thousands.
A dam in the Netherlands has broken, forcing thousands of people to evacuate in the south of the low-lying country, which has been flooded as water flows downstream from Germany and Belgium.
At least 23 people were killed in the Belgian region of Wallonia, and Prime Minister Alexandre de Croo declared Tuesday to be a day of national mourning «to express the heavy human loss, but also to pay tribute to the demonstrations of solidarity and a sense of unity in the population.»
«This could be the most disastrous flood our country has ever experienced,» he told reporters.
Footage from the Bippenster disaster area, between Liege and Aachen, showed people scrambling to escape the roof of a house whose basements had collapsed in the floodwaters below.
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