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Scholz: The federal government has not forgotten the Ahr Valley
STORY: It’s been a good eight months since a flood disaster devastated parts of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate. A lot has happened and been rebuilt since then. But the traces of the July flood are still visible. Chancellor Olaf Scholz saw this for himself on Tuesday. He visited Bad Münstereifel together with NRW Prime Minister Henrik Wüst. The Erft now ripples tranquilly along. There are excavators and trucks everywhere, it looks like work. Wüst was impressed: “Of course, the pictures are still such that you can see that there is still a lot to be done here, but an incredible amount has already happened. That requires a lot of respect for the community effort that is being tackled and built up here.” In Bad Münstereifel, the Erft with its water masses had left a picture of destruction. Many of the half-timbered houses in the historic old town were damaged, while other houses were completely destroyed or washed away. More than 180 people died in the flood disaster last summer in Germany, most of them in the Rhineland-Palatinate district of Ahrweiler. Scholz also stopped by here on Tuesday. Together with the Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Malu Dreyer, he visited the badly affected municipality of Ahrbrück, which was largely destroyed in the night of the floods. Even months after the flood, the Federal Government has not forgotten the Ahr Valley, the Chancellor assured. That’s why he came to the flood areas of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, despite the tense world situation.
A good eight months after the flood disaster in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, Chancellor Olaf Scholz informed himself about the status of reconstruction during a visit to the affected areas.