storm
Southern Germany groans under the floods
A car washed away by the flood hangs on a fountain in Rudersberg. Photo
© dpa
The water still has Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg in its grip, even if the all-clear has been given in some places. But where the water recedes, the dire consequences come to light.
The images left by the flooding in large parts of southern Germany are dramatic. And so are the consequences. Where the water recedes, it is not just the massive damage and masses of mud that become visible. On Monday, emergency services recovered three dead bodies from cellars in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.
The situation in the flood areas is still dynamic: many small communities are affected, thousands of helpers are still on duty. Dams in Bavaria are threatening to break, the flooding could now shift further to the east of the Free State. In Baden-Württemberg, the authorities are cautiously giving hope in many places and lifting warnings.
The number of victims is rising
But the horror over the deaths in the flood areas remains: A woman is found lifeless in the basement of a house in Schrobenhausen in Upper Bavaria in the morning – a missing 43-year-old who had been searched for since Sunday. The bodies of a man and a woman are discovered in the Rems-Murr district in Baden-Württemberg, which was particularly affected by the floods – also in a basement that had previously been flooded. The exact circumstances of their deaths are still unclear. A firefighter died in a flood operation at the weekend, and another firefighter is also missing in Swabia.
The two dead in Baden-Württemberg were not yet known when Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) arrived in southern Germany in the morning to get an idea of the situation. The Chancellor already had a sad flood routine. “This is the fourth time this year that I have gone to a specific area of operation and looked at what is there,” said Scholz in front of the fire department’s operations center in Reichertshofen in Upper Bavaria.
Disasters are piling up
Wearing rubber boots, he had previously been shown how the small river Paar had partially flooded the market town the day before. Whole streets were submerged by water here – as in many other parts of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. The persistent rain over the weekend has brought a new flood disaster to tens of thousands of people. In fact, says Scholz, the number of disasters is increasing. “We cannot neglect the task of stopping man-made climate change,” he stresses. “This is also a warning that must be taken away from this event and this disaster.”
While pumps and generators are already rattling here in Reichertshofen to empty flooded cellars, people elsewhere are still battling the floods. Photos show residents of the town of Burgau, east of Ulm, who have barricaded the entrances to their properties with sandbags and beer tables. In neighboring Günzburg, a resident told the “Tagesschau” that he had been on his feet since 5 a.m. “The cellar and living room – everything under water,” he said. An elderly woman, whose house has already been cleaned up by helpers, says in the report, crying: “This is my house!”
There are slight glimmers of hope
In Baden-Württemberg, the situation seems to be easing somewhat. Recently, the region around Stuttgart and further east had been the focus of the emergency services. In Rudersberg in the Rems-Murr district northeast of the state capital, masses of water swept away cars, several ended up on train tracks, one on a fountain in the city center, as can be seen in pictures from Monday.
Household items washed away from houses, a sneaker, puzzle pieces lie on muddy streets. A huge amount of rubbish has been washed up on a bridge. In Miedelsbach, a district of Schorndorf just a few kilometers away, masses of water piled cars on top of each other during the night. At least there are signs of easing in the region on Monday, and warnings are being withdrawn. The state’s interior minister, Thomas Strobl, describes the situation as “tense and static.”
In Bavaria, on the other hand, anxious glances are now focused on the Danube. “We can see that the flood is now moving,” says Söder, who is on a flood inspection with Scholz. The city of Regensburg is already declaring a state of emergency on Monday. How bad it really will be remains to be seen. The message now is: “Hope that we get through the next few days well,” says Söder. “We will remain on alert.”