It is an attempt to put helplessness into words and still express confidence: “With this brutal force of nature we feel particularly small and vulnerable,” said Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo in view of the flooding that hit east and south Belgium particularly hard. But everything humanly possible will be done to help the victims, he emphasized. The Brussels daily newspaper Le Soir balanced on its front page: “The powerlessness”. This is followed by 14 special pages that document the extent of the devastation and the suffering of the people.
On Friday afternoon, the authorities reported 23 deaths, but as in Germany, the number is likely to increase when the rescue workers reach all flooded communities. 13 people are missing. The crisis center asked citizens in the south and east of the country to refrain from all travel. Elio Di Rupo, the prime minister of the particularly affected Wallonia region, spoke in the morning of a “certain relaxation”: However, the situation has not yet improved significantly, as emergency aid is still being dealt with. The drinking water is inedible in places, tens of thousands in East Belgium are without electricity, and rail traffic is severely impaired.
Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden declared a national emergency on Thursday and visited the badly affected city of Chaudfontaine together with King Philippe and Queen Mathilde. In order to get help from abroad, Verlinden activated the European civil protection mechanism. Lifeboats, for example, are needed. In addition to Italy and Austria, France is also helping. On Friday morning, Prime Minister Jean Castex announced that 40 French military personnel and a rescue helicopter had been deployed to the Liege region.
Sofas, cars and rubble float in the water
In the university town of the same name with 200,000 inhabitants, the situation on Thursday was particularly delicate. The station was closed, the gas, water and electricity supplies were cut off, and anyone living along the Maas River should leave their homes. Film footage showed a torrent that brought stone walls to collapse and drifted into sofas, cars and rubble.
Cars stand in the flood of a flooded street in Liège, Belgium.
(Photo: Valentin Bianchi / dpa)
As the Liège police announced, the water level of the Meuse did not rise any further during the night, which spared the city center. In the other rivers in the region, which borders North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, the water is expected to sink over the course of Friday, according to the authorities – but the picture is impaired due to numerous destroyed or damaged measuring stations.
In Maastricht, the Netherlands, around 10,000 citizens were called on Thursday evening to get to safety from the floods. Several hundred soldiers were deployed as support. The royal couple also traveled to the Limburg region in the south of the Netherlands, where cellars overflowed and there were power outages. Willem-Alexander and Máxima trudged through Valkenburg in green rubber boots and talked to citizens. On Friday, the king addressed the neighbors Belgium and Germany directly: “I wish all people who have been affected by the flood a lot of strength.”
The Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima visited the flooded Valkenburg.
(Photo: via www.imago-images.de/imago images / ANP)
NATO pipeline damaged
In Luxembourg, the government classified the storms as a natural disaster, which immediately freed up 50 million euros in emergency aid. Prime Minister Xavier Bettel said on Thursday evening that private individuals, businesses and farmers would be easily helped. Hundreds of people had to be evacuated in the Grand Duchy, for example from Echternach, Hesperingen and Ettelbruck, but as far as we know, no people died in Luxembourg. There, on Friday, the levels of almost all rivers fell everywhere except the Moselle.
Because a pipeline system of the NATO military alliance was damaged by the floods, which also supplies the Luxembourg airport with kerosene, airlines were asked to bring the fuel overland or to switch to other airports in the region. At least one thing should make the citizens of the Benelux region a little positive: Sunshine and temperatures of up to 27 degrees are predicted for the next few days.