At least 11 dead and more than 30 missing in Germany’s once-in-a-generation floods

Houses are submerged on the overflowed river banks in Erdorf. (AP: Harald Tittel/DPA

At least 11 people are dead and more than 30 are missing after six houses collapsed during once-in-a-generation floods in the country’s most populous region, the western German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

About 25 more homes are also at risk of collapse in the district of Schuld bei Adenau, in the hilly Eifel region, regional German public broadcaster SWR said, citing police.

The army was deployed to help stranded residents on Wednesday local time.

Rail, road and river transport was disrupted with shipping suspended on the Rhine river after the slow-moving low-pressure weather system caused the once-in-25-year floods.

The German Weather Service issued an extreme weather warning for parts of three western states, while Hagen, a city of 180,000, declared a state of emergency after the Volme river burst its banks.

Heavy rainstorms could be expected in south-western Germany on Thursday, with continuous rains until Friday evening, the German Weather Service warned in a morning bulletin.

Electricity gone for 200,000 homes

 The flooding has cut electricity to 200,000 households, a spokeswoman for Westnetz, the country’s biggest power distribution grid company, said on Thursday.

“We are trying to resolve the situation with all available hands on deck,” she said in response to an inquiry.

The company’s grid area spans large parts of the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, but not the cities of Cologne, Wuppertal and Duesseldorf.

It supplies around 7.5 million with power, gas, water and heat.

She said many power substations could not be reached for repairs because roads were still blocked.

Freak flood could put climate change on the agenda

With Germans voting in September to choose a successor to Chancellor Angela Merkel, the extreme weather could heighten awareness of global warming, a topic with which the Greens, running second to Ms Merkel’s conservatives, have so far failed to dominate the agenda.

The city’s crisis team warned that water would reach levels seen not more than four times a century in coming hours and warned everyone who lived near the town’s rivers to move to higher ground immediately, public broadcaster WDR reported.

“We see this kind of situation only in winter ordinarily,” Bernd Mehlig, an environment official from North Rhine-Westphalia, the most affected region, told WDR.

Parts of Hagen were described as being isolated by high waters and all but inaccessible.

Soldiers had to be sent to clear some areas of the city.

Residents were also told to leave one district of regional capital Duesseldorf, a major business centre.

Reuters