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“And then came the water”
Reading time: 8 mins
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Land below: Rescue teams rescue residents trapped by the water in Hamburg in 1962.
(Photo: dpa)
In 1962, a tsunami flooded the south of Hamburg, hundreds of people drowned and tens of thousands lost their belongings. Today the dykes on the Elbe are higher and more stable, but would they hold up? Visiting a contemporary witness and a dike officer.
from
Peter Burghardt, Hamburg
She brought the old blanket from the army, it was scratchy and gray. Jutta Blankau pulls them out of a fabric bag in a Hamburg café. It says “Bund” and “ZB”, which means “Civil Civil Protection”. Soldiers had put the blanket over her shoulders in February 1962 when the water from the storm surge was two steps below her children’s room and the Blankaus were being fished off the balcony like castaways.
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