Catastrophic flooding in western Europe has killed more than 100 people, with hundreds more missing, authorities said Friday, as large-scale rescue efforts continue amidst rising water, landslides and power outages.
Shocking images of the devastation in Germany and Belgium showed entire villages underwater, with cars wedged in between collapsed buildings and debris. The Netherlands and Luxembourg have also been affected by the extreme rainfall.
In Germany, at least 103 people have been killed across two western states. In the hard-hit district of Ahrweiler, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, authorities told CNN that 1,300 people remained unaccounted for.
“There is no end in sight just yet,” Ulrich Sopart, a police spokesman in the city of Koblenz, told CNN. He said that authorities are hopeful that they will be able to revise down the number of missing people as the rescue operation continues and phone lines are restored.
”Our hopes are that some people might have been registered as missing twice or even three times — if for example a family member, a work colleague or a friend has registered a person as missing,” Sopart said.
”Also, [in] some places phone lines are still down and reception is difficult. We do hope that people will get in touch with a relative, work colleague or friend to let them know they are fine,” he said.
At least 165,000 people are currently without power in Rhineland-Palatinate and the neighboring state of North Rhine-Westphalia, authorities told CNN.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, where at least 43 people have died, the state’s Interior Ministry spokeswoman Katja Heins told CNN: ”The situation remains very dynamic – we do not know how many people are unaccounted for.”
The death toll in Rhineland-Palatinate has risen to at least 60, the state premier, Malu Dreyer, announced Friday, adding that there was bad news every hour. ”We have 60 dead to mourn at the moment and it is to be feared that the number will rise even further, ” Dreyer said at a news conference, adding: ”We have not yet reached the stage where we can say that situation is easing.”
The German states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland have been the worst affected by the record rainfall, which authorities have called the heaviest in a century.
”In some areas we have not seen as much rainfall in 100 years,” a spokesperson for the German weather service DWD said, adding that in those regions, they have “seen more than double the amount of rainfall,” causing flooding and structures to collapse.
Large swaths of western Germany saw 24-hour rainfall totals between 100 and 150 millimeters (3.9-5.9 inches), which represent more than a month’s worth of rainfall in this region, according to CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller.
Cologne, in North Rhine-Westphalia, recorded 154 millimeters (6 inches) of rainfall in the 24 hours to Thursday morning, which is nearly double its monthly average for July of 87 millimeters.
Heavier localized downpours resulted in extreme flash flooding. In Reifferscheid, in the Ahrweiler district, an incredible 207 millimeters (8.1 inches) of rain fell in only nine hours, according to the European Severe Weather Database.
The intense deluges were the result of a slow-moving area of low pressure, which allowed a conveyor belt of warm and moist air to fuel powerful thunderstorms and heavy, long-lasting rain, according to the German weather service.
Extreme rainfall is becoming more common in the warming climate, as warmer air can hold more water vapor that is available to fall as rain.
“Climate change has arrived in Germany,” Environment Minister Svenja Schulze tweeted Thursday, adding that “the events show with what force the consequences of climate change can affect us all, and how important it is for us to adjust to extreme weather events in the future.”
Hannah Cloke, a professor of hydrology at the UK’s University of Reading, told CNN that “these kind of high-energy, sudden summer torrents of rain are exactly what we expect in our rapidly heating climate.”
On Thursday, the DWD predicted that the “worst of the torrential rainfall is over,” although more heavy rain is expected in southwestern Germany on Friday.
In neighboring Belgium, at least 14 people have died, authorities said Friday, with a further five people in the southern region of Wallonia still unaccounted for.
Some 21,000 people are also without electricity in Wallonia, according to energy supplier Ores, who said that the situation across the power network remains “extremely complicated.” Some 300 distribution points are flooded and impossible to reach, it said.
Nadine Schmidt reported from Berlin, Barbara Wojazer reported from Paris and Sharon Braithwaite and Vasco Cotovio reported in London. Kara Fox, James Frater and Melissa Gray contributed to this report.
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