Storms flooded cellars and streets in several regions of Germany on Thursday. Parts of North Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg were particularly affected. In the evening there were still severe weather warnings from the German Weather Service (DWD) of severe thunderstorms with heavy rain and hail in parts of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg. In addition to the flooding of cellars and streets, damage from hailstorms and local lightning damage can be expected, the DWD announced in Offenbach.
In the Ruhr area, Autobahn 42 near Herne was flooded. Between the Herne junction and the Gelsenkirchen-Bismarck exit, numerous cars got stuck in the water, it was said on Thursday evening from the control center of the motorway police. The section of the route has been closed. The police and fire brigade are in action with pumps, among other things, to monitor the situation and, if necessary, to take care of those stuck.
The fire brigade control center in Herne spoke of more than 50 missions in the evening. 130 people are deployed. According to Keller, it was full and several large exits were flooded.
Bavaria also badly affected again
In the neighboring city of Bochum, the fire brigade also had to move out for storm-related operations. Twice lightning had struck trees there that threatened to topple over. In the town of Fröndenberg an der Ruhr, which was badly hit by floods a few days ago, several cellars were again full.
During thunderstorms, several cellars in Eastern Bavaria were full and trees fell on streets on Thursday. According to information from the integrated control center in Passau, the emergency services in the surrounding districts had been deployed 122 times for severe weather missions by early evening. Emergency calls were most frequently received from the Rottal-Inn district (66). It was mostly about water damage, said a spokesman.
In Baden-Württemberg, too, heavy rain sometimes led to chaos and traffic delays. According to a city spokeswoman, many cellars in Kraichtal in the Karlsruhe district were full, several streets were flooded and partly covered with mud. Within a few minutes it was raining so hard that the water could no longer run off.