Such is the situation in Passau
The situation in the flood areas in the south and east of Bavaria has eased somewhat. In Passau, the level of the Danube was 8.18 meters early Monday morning and thus below the highest flood warning level of 8.5 meters. Fortunately, one is still far from catastrophic conditions, said a police spokesman in Passau on Monday.
Even in the Berchtesgadener Land, which was particularly badly hit by storms, people could breathe a sigh of relief. “The night passed quietly,” said the fire department. The helpers are now busy with cleaning up. The weather outlook also gives cause for hope. Except for a few short showers, it should stay dry in the coming days. Storms are currently not in sight, said a meteorologist from the German Weather Service (DWD).
However, there has not yet been a complete all-clear, especially in cities like Passau. Promenades and parking lots had already been flooded, residents protecting their houses with sandbags and barriers. On Sunday, as a precautionary measure, the police towed cars that the owners had not reparked despite warnings. The peak of the flood wave is expected around 9 a.m. The levels also rose elsewhere, for example in Neuburg an der Donau, where flood warning level three was reached.
Relaxation in the Berchtesgadener Land
The situation at the weekend in Berchtesgadener Land was dramatic. Here the force of the water struck with full force after the river Ache overflowed its banks on Saturday. More than 160 people had to be brought from their homes to safety in the holiday region around the Königssee, one person was killed. The disaster had been declared. A geologist also checked the slopes to see whether there could be any more slopes there.
On the night of Monday, the precipitation decreased. The flood news service Bavaria (HND) gave the all-clear for the district in the morning.
Söder and Scholz promise quick help
On Sunday afternoon, Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) and the Federal Minister of Finance and SPD candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited the affected region. At a joint press conference, both promised that they would quickly support the local people. “Mini-tsunamis” had been experienced here that were not known to anyone, said Söder. “An unbelievable wake-up call from nature,” he called the events. “One thing is clear, we will help.” He referred to the reconstruction of the infrastructure and personal help for the citizens. Regardless of the prospect of federal aid, Bavaria will also consider how to help. The Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) announced later that evening that the Bavarian cabinet would be discussing on Tuesday how quick help could look like for those affected in the south and east of Bavaria. “We will not leave these people there alone,” emphasized Herrmann in an interview with BR24 Rundschau.
Söder continued that he was happy that Finance Minister Scholz was there. “I appreciate that because it’s also about financial opportunities.” Scholz spoke of a “national dimension” of the events – and also meant the still devastating storms in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate. That is why the whole country must help with emergency aid and reconstruction. It is about billions, which no local community can handle alone. “We will definitely help,” said Scholz. The first decisions on emergency aid should be made this week. According to Scholz, the emergency aid is based on the last flood, i.e. around 400 million euros.
With a view to the floods in western Germany, Söder spoke of an “absolute super catastrophe”. In relation to this, the situation in Bavaria is still “very, very bad”, but not quite as dramatic. For the individual affected, it is just as bad. “That is why every fate must be valuable to us.” Söder warned that we now have to accelerate the pace of both climate adaptation measures and climate protection. Bavaria wants to become climate-neutral by 2040, “and we will have to work hard for it,” said the CSU boss. But even if climate protection is expensive: “In the end, the costs of doing nothing are much, much more expensive.”
The balance of the emergency services in Berchtesgaden
The local operations manager Anton Brandner spoke of dramatic scenes on Sunday: “Vehicles on the streets became the plaything of the masses of water.” 890 assistants are now in Berchtesgaden, Bischofswiesen, Schönau am Königssee, Marktschellenberg and Ramsau, many of them since Saturday evening without a break. They had to move out up to 500 times.
According to District Administrator Kern, the damage cannot yet be assessed. But this goes into the millions, he said. The fire brigade and technical relief organization were busy on Sunday to make roads passable again, to pump out basements and to prevent further flooding with sandbags. Several railway lines were closed in Upper Bavaria. Sirens could be heard again and again on Sundays. Firefighters and workers from the Technical Relief Organization are trying to clear the streets of rubble and mud, empty the cellars and use sandbags to prevent further flooding.
Accident with rescuers in Berchtesgaden – four injured
Helpers of the Technical Relief Organization (THW) have had an accident with their truck while working in the flood area of Berchtesgaden. Four people were injured, some seriously, as the Bavarian Red Cross announced on Sunday. The car was loaded with sandbags and came downhill on Salzbergstrasse (B319) into the opposite lane and collided with a car. The truck overturned.
According to police investigations, the 42-year-old THW driver was on the road with his 25-year-old co-driver. A vacationing couple from the Upper Palatinate was sitting in the other accident car. The police suspected that the truck’s brakes might have overheated. The two THW helpers were seriously to moderately injured, the couple only slightly. In addition, the water rescue had to rescue several stranded hikers who could not get any further because of the flood, as the ferries no longer drove on the Königssee.
Schools and daycare centers in Berchtesgadener Land remain closed
Schools and daycare centers in the flood areas will be closed on Monday. The district office of Berchtesgadener Land announced on Sunday that there will be emergency care. It is not yet clear whether the facilities in Berchtesgaden, Bischofswiesen, Marktschellenberg, Ramsau and Schönau am Königssee will have to remain closed on Tuesday. On the one hand, this serves the safety of the children, it was said as a reason. Above all, however, the passable streets should be kept free so that the emergency services could get through smoothly with their heavy equipment.
Königssee bobsleigh and toboggan run badly damaged
The violent storms in Berchtesgadener Land also severely damaged the bobsleigh and toboggan run on the Königssee. Parts of the World Cup track were torn away by the masses of water and destroyed, as can be seen in pictures and videos on Sunday. The district of Berchtesgadener Land as the owner initially did not comment on the details and the severity of the damage on the more than 1500 meter long traditional railway in Schönau am Königssee.
“It hurts infinitely!” Wrote the multiple luge world champion and Olympic champion Felix Loch in the social networks next to a photo of the badly demolished race track. His heart was broken, added the Berchtesgadener and expressed the hope that no one was injured. The former toboggan runner and bobsledder Susi Erdmann wrote on Facebook with a crying smiley: “Unbelievable … My former home track at Königssee will simply be washed away.”
The pictures show how rubble and water masses tore part of the covered World Cup and World Cup track with them and destroyed them. An amateur video recorded during the night shows how water flows down the railway and violently floods parts of the facility.
Where train traffic is impaired
Floods and mudslides lead to disruptions in train traffic in the south of Upper Bavaria. The route between Munich and Innsbruck was affected, said a spokesman for Deutsche Bahn on Sunday. Due to the storm, operations between Eschenlohe and Oberau were suspended on Sunday morning. The places Ohlstadt and Eschenlohe could not be approached. A rail replacement service runs between Weilheim and Oberau.
The route between Mittenwald and Scharnitz was also closed in the morning. Trains from Innsbruck end in Scharnitz. The trains from Munich only go to Weilheim due to a planned construction site. Because Bundesstraße 2 is not passable due to the storm, no replacement traffic is possible between Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Scharnitz.
Dammed wood in the Allgäu mountain river
In the vicinity of the popular holiday resort of Oberstdorf in the Allgäu, tree trunks wedged themselves into a natural barrier on a bridge over a mountain river on Sunday night. The fire brigade feared that this so-called blockage could suddenly loosen – and that a tidal wave rushed into the valley. The emergency services could not intervene, however, as the point could not be reached with heavy equipment.
Eventually, the trunks came apart one by one, so no problem arose. “We were lucky,” said a spokesman for the police, who otherwise had no relevant flood operations to report for the Allgäu.
Reporting level three also reached rivers in other regions such as the Salzach in the Burghausen area (Altötting district) and the Loisach near Eschenlohe in the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district in Upper Bavaria. There was also a threat of flooding in Munich on the Isar and in the Altötting district.