Germany: At least 6 houses collapse after flooding sweeps village near Bonn

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At least six houses collapsed leaving several people missing in the west German village of Schuld after heavy rain lead to catastrophic flood on Thursday.

Firefighters could be seen carrying children away in the village while excavators removed trees and debris from the damaged roads. Several bridges were destroyed.

“I’ve never experienced this before what happened here. One could not see, it happened so quickly,” said Renate Holzem, a town resident.

Another local said that he’d “never seen anything like” the flooding, which took place after the river Ahr broke its banks due to torrential rains.

At least 40 people have died, with dozens more missing, across Rhineland-Palatinate, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saarland due to the flash floods, which happened after several rivers burst their banks during some of the heaviest rainfall in a century. Six people were also killed in Belgium, with flooding also hitting the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

In the coming days, the German army is expected to deploy 300 soldiers in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, the two most affected states, to participate in search and rescue operations.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is currently visiting the US, expressed her sympathies and described the situation as a ‘catastrophe.’

SOUNDBITES:

SOT, Klaus Rademacher, Resident (German): “Yes, it was a few days of continuous rain and last night at 4 p.m. it continued to rise and then the Ahr slowly rose from the river bed. Already at 5 pm or 5:30 pm, the bakery was already closed and then further down Bergmanstrasse, had risen height probably. The first floor was flooded, whole trees, camper vans, and cars.”

SOT, Margaret Radmacher, Resident (German): “Really bad. We laughed at first, but then we live on Bergmanstrasse and more and more water came and and they told us to get out of the house. And we though no we’re not affected, but we took everything upstairs that we could from the first floor, yeah.”

SOT, Renate Holzem, Resident (German): “I’ve never experienced this before what happened here. One could not see, it happened so quickly, it went too fast down believe. I told my husband his car was gone. I came right out here until here, it was coming down so fast you couldn’t see.”

SOT, Theo Klein, Resident (German): “I was in the fire brigade for over 50 years, I’ve been through a lot, death, all, but never seen anything like this. The river flowing and cars above. Just terrible, terrible, terrible.”

#Bonn #Germany #Deutschland #Unwetter #Hochwasser

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