storm
Tense flood situation: dams full, dikes brittle
Floods flow around the town of Ruthe in the Hildesheim district. photo
© Julian Stratenschulte/dpa
The rain has consequences: dams can no longer hold the water, dikes are giving way. Many people had to leave their homes over Christmas. And the situation remains tense.
Hundreds of people had to leave their homes over the Christmas holidays because of flooding – swelling watercourses and overflowing Dams could force others to flee. Authorities from Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt said on Tuesday that the situation would remain tense in the next few days. The weather forecast offers some hope: According to the German Weather Service (DWD) forecast, there will be some rain in the northwest on Wednesday, otherwise it will be dry with some major breaks.
After days of continuous rain, the flood situation in many regions of Germany worsened over the holidays. In Saxony-Anhalt, around 180 residents of the town of Thürungen were asked on Tuesday to seek safety at the Kelbra reservoir and the Helme because of the threat of flooding. Elsewhere in the region, residents should prepare for possible evacuations. The extent of possible flooding is difficult to predict, said a spokeswoman for the Mansfeld-Südharz district.
Evacuations in Thuringia
Hundreds of people also had to leave their houses and apartments on Christmas holidays due to flooding in Rinteln in Lower Saxony and in Windehausen in Thuringia. As here, rivers overflowing their banks in other federal states transformed the surrounding area into large-scale water landscapes.
In Windehausen, Thuringia, the situation had eased significantly on Tuesday, a police spokesman said early on Wednesday morning. The water levels in Thuringia have largely decreased. Softened dams burst in Northeim in southern Lower Saxony and Uplengen in the Leer district. Helpers were on constant duty to secure the battered bulwarks with sandbags.
While the situation began to ease regionally as the rains eased, other areas were still facing the most critical situation. The highest water levels of a flood wave on the Elbe were not expected until Wednesday. It was said that this was due to the melting snow and heavy rainfall in the Giant Mountains.