Severe weather in parts of Germany: heavy rain, squalls and landslides

Violent thunderstorms have caused chaos in parts of Germany. Emergency services had to deal with floods, flooded basements and traffic accidents. New storms are already in sight.

Thunderstorms with squalls and heavy rain hit people in many regions of Germany. In Stuttgart alone, the fire brigade counted over 330 missions from Monday evening until the early morning. Persistent heavy rain caused several tunnels to fill up with water in a very short time.

Statues fell from their pedestals

Parts of the roof cladding were covered at the Stuttgart State Opera. Statues also fell from their pedestals. The side stage was under water – the rain had partly flowed through the lamps into the building, reported the director Viktor Schoner. 250 guests were at a recital in the opera at the time of the storm, no one was injured.

In the district of Calw, fire brigade and police forces were very busy in the evening. A spokesman for the Pforzheim police spoke of flooded streets, overflowing gullies and landslides in the Altensteig community.

Accidents due to heavy rain on the motorways

Some severe storms also hit Rhineland-Palatinate and parts of Hesse. The fire brigade announced that there were 265 deployments in the Vorderpfalz within a short time due to the heavy rain event. In the city of Ludwigshafen alone, there were 84 missions, water was pumped from basements and apartments, and fallen trees were removed.

Heavy rain caused a lot of work for the emergency services in Koblenz. The fire brigade and police were on duty due to full cellars, flooded streets and several accidents. In Bad Dürkheim, the emergency services increasingly moved out at night because of muddy streets and flooded cellars.

On two motorways in Rhineland-Palatinate there were accidents with injuries during heavy rains. On the A3 and A48 there were a total of seven accidents in the late afternoon in the area of ​​the Montabaur motorway police, as the police announced. One person was seriously injured and three others suffered minor injuries. A total of twelve vehicles were involved in the accidents.

More than a hundred missions in Bavaria too

In Bavaria, too, the storm raged deep into the night. Within a very short time there were 101 fire brigade and 25 rescue service operations, as the city of Würzburg announced. The emergency services cleared fallen trees, secured parts that were flying around, pumped out full cellars and secured flooded roads.

In Bocholt in North Rhine-Westphalia, the emergency services had to move out more than a hundred times after heavy rain. Numerous cellars had to be pumped out and trees had to be cleared from streets.

DWD warns of further storms

A spokeswoman for the German Weather Service (DWD) said that there was no end of the storm in sight. Although the current storm that formed over Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria has now partially moved to the Czech Republic, the weather situation remains complex. There are always new storms.

The DWD expects “new, sometimes strong, thunderstorms with a local risk of thunderstorms, especially from heavy rain” in the north and later also in the east.