Status: 07/21/2021 03:37 a.m.
THW Vice-President Lackner expects hardly any survivors of the flood disaster. At the same time, she warned against a hasty debate about blame.
The Vice President of the Technical Relief Organization, Sabine Lackner, sees little chance of finding survivors after the floods in western Germany. “We are currently still looking for missing people, for example when clearing the paths or pumping out the basement,” said Lackner to the editorial network Germany. “At this point, however, it is unfortunately very likely that victims can only be rescued, not saved.”
The THW vice-president warned against the quick assignment of blame, according to which a better warning system could have prevented deaths. “Of course we will have to work through the processes. But I find this debate unfortunate three to four days after the disaster,” said Lackner. Many people are still standing in front of the ruins of their livelihoods, and many support measures are still in progress.
Return to the “old-fashioned”?
For a debate on the warning system, it also needs calm “and also the experts. Most of them are currently still deployed in the floodplains,” said Lackner. As a lesson from the catastrophe, the THW deputy boss advocated reviving “supposedly old-fashioned things”: If cell phone networks, telephones and electricity fail, the warning app is no longer of any use. That is why more siren alarms are necessary again.
“And the population should be able to distinguish the warning tones again.” The storms last week had caused severe damage, especially in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate. At least 168 people were killed. For days there has been a heated discussion about how the warning of the population can be improved in the event of future severe weather events.