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Dozens dead, more than 1,000 may be missing after floods in Germany

  

Category:  News & Politics

Via:  perrie-halpern  •  3 years ago  •  22 comments

By:   Phil Helsel

Dozens dead, more than 1,000 may be missing after floods in Germany
More than 50 people are dead in Germany and around 1,300 people are assumed missing after severe floods struck parts of the country and Belgium.

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T



At least 50 people are dead and more than 1,000 others are unaccounted for after floods in Germany caused rivers to burst their banks, swept away cars and caused homes to collapse Thursday, authorities said.

The government in the district of Ahrweiler, which is in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, said as many as 1,300 people are assumed to be missing.

Officials said at least 30 people died in North Rhine-Westphalia state and that 28 died in neighboring Rhineland-Palatinate to the south, The Associated Press reported.

Storms caused deadly flooding in Belgium, where media reported eight deaths. Luxembourg and the Netherlands also experienced flooding.

In Germany, torrential rain and storms stranded people on rooftops, and authorities used inflatable boats and helicopters to identify and rescue residents. The German army deployed soldiers to assist in the operation.

-GERMANY-_COLLAPSE.jpg

Buildings collapse as deadly floods strike western Germany


German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to meet with President Joe Biden, said the situation was "characterized by fear, by despair, by suffering."

Hundreds of thousands of people were faced with catastrophe, she said, and homes became death traps.

"My empathy and my heart goes out to all of those who in this catastrophe who lost their loved ones or who were still worrying about the fate of people still missing," she said.

Biden also expressed his condolences and the condolences of the American people to those affected by the flooding in Germany and other countries.

In Schuld, which is in Ahrweiler, Edgar Gillessen said the devastation was "simply catastrophic."

"All these people living here, I know them all. I feel so sorry for them. They've lost everything. All they have is what they've had on them — it's all gone," Gillessen, 65, told Reuters. "A friend had a workshop over there, nothing standing. The bakery, the butcher — it's all gone. It's scary. Unimaginable."

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said that her thoughts were with those affected by the flooding in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands and that the European Union stands ready to help.

In Belgium, the Vesdre River broke its banks and sent torrents of water churning through the streets of Pepinster, close to Liege, its destructive power bringing down some buildings.

France sent a helicopter and a rescue team to Belgium to assist local authorities, and Italy and Austria have offered flood rescue teams, the European Commission said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed.


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Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
1  Buzz of the Orient    3 years ago

There seems to be a lot of strange weather-related things happening over the last little while - but not to worry, because there are lots of people who deny that there is climate change, global warming caused by increased greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.  Hope there will be water to drink and food to eat for my grandchildren down the road. 

 
 
 
Greg Jones
Professor Participates
1.1  Greg Jones  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @1    3 years ago

Yes.....if all the world's governments work together, global warming can be stopped.

However, they'll need to immediately ban cars, planes, trains, trucks, power plants, and factories

But weather is not climate change.

Storms and floods have occurred since the oceans filled up

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
1.1.1  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Greg Jones @1.1    3 years ago

Are you a meteorologist?

 
 
 
Greg Jones
Professor Participates
1.1.2  Greg Jones  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @1.1.1    3 years ago

Are you a meteorologist?

Are you?

 
 
 
Gordy327
Professor Expert
1.1.3  Gordy327  replied to  Greg Jones @1.1    3 years ago

To be clear, weather may not be climate change, but it is a symptom of climate change.

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
1.1.4  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Greg Jones @1.1.2    3 years ago

Well no, but I don't politicize the weather, I go with the eminent scientists.

 
 
 
bccrane
Freshman Silent
1.2  bccrane  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @1    3 years ago

I had a change of mind about AGW after we went through our 500 year flood just last year, it was predicted to be a 2-3 inch rain event that turned into an 8-12 inch rain event in 24 hours.  I pulled up a map of Michigan and located the windmi sorry "turbine" farms in Michigan and they form a cup around the area that flooded.  Michigan is about the size of Germany and has about 1500 wind turbines, Germany has almost 30,000 and then Belgium and the Netherlands has large offshore installations.  What happens when the atmosphere loses it's energy?  It can no longer hold onto the moisture and the water condenses and precipitates out.  I wouldn't be too quick blaming greenhouse gases, but there maybe another man caused component to it.

There were fog advisories out in Michigan again, becoming a daily event, lets draw a map of where, right hand palm up, the area mid pinky to upper palm, center of palm, and the thumb and low and behold that is where the wind turbine farms are.

Ok, now there is something that needs to be cleared up, I always get push back about "what about the trees".  Wind turbines resist the wind to remove the energy from the wind at an optimal rate, trees offer the least amount of resistance to the wind as possible but still capitalize the area for solar capture of energy, that is why leaves are on stems so they can fold back in the wind and others have needles or thin leaves. 

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
1.2.1  Ender  replied to  bccrane @1.2    3 years ago

The weather is just nuts. Lake mead is drying up. The west is burning while we are the opposite. Now at 62 inches of rain for the year.

 
 
 
Greg Jones
Professor Participates
1.2.2  Greg Jones  replied to  bccrane @1.2    3 years ago

What happens when the atmosphere loses it's energy?  It can no longer hold onto the moisture and the water condenses and precipitates out.  I wouldn't be too quick blaming greenhouse gases, but there maybe another man caused component to it.

It doesn't 'lose its energy'. As the air rises, it cools. When it cools enough, the water vapor in it  condenses into water droplets. With further lift and cooling the moisture  precipitates as rain or snow.

If the upper winds are light a rainstorm, especially a thunderstorm, can sit over an area for hours, or even days, dumping humongous amounts of rain

Wind turbines and trees have minimal effects on wind patterns

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
1.2.3  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  bccrane @1.2    3 years ago

You rekindled a memory from my childhood.  When I was a young kid I spent my summers at my grandmother's cottage.  There were many tall poplar trees there and the leaves were a nice dark green.  When a storm started to brew and the winds got a little stronger all the leaves seemed to turn over and show their silvery bottom sides.  

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
1.2.4  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Greg Jones @1.2.2    3 years ago

I apologize for my earlier comment.  Now you're talking like someone who knows what theiy're talking about.

 
 
 
Krishna
Professor Expert
1.2.5  Krishna  replied to  bccrane @1.2    3 years ago

And don't forget that Trump is a meteorologist and he informed us that windmills CAUSE CANCER!!! :-(

 
 
 
bccrane
Freshman Silent
1.2.6  bccrane  replied to  Greg Jones @1.2.2    3 years ago

"As air rises, it cools" or in other words, loses energy to decompression.  The blades of the wind turbine are airfoils, the passage of the wind causes a low pressure or decompresses (cools) the atmosphere along the curved surface while the atmospheric pressure on the flat side pushes the blade, according to it's pitch, forward, this action transforms the energy contained within the wind into the electricity at the generator.

The electricity coming from these wind turbines is not magically being produced, whatever hp or BTUs are being produced has to be removed from the atmosphere.  It was either Russia, China, or both that were proposing an ocean turbine farm that was to produce 330 million hp, think about that, I don't think that that is insignificant or minimal.

 
 
 
Sunshine
Professor Quiet
1.3  Sunshine  replied to  Buzz of the Orient @1    3 years ago
Hope there will be water to drink and food to eat for my grandchildren down the road. 

Tell them to buy some land and they can have a well and grow their own food. 

 
 
 
Buzz of the Orient
Professor Expert
1.3.1  Buzz of the Orient  replied to  Sunshine @1.3    3 years ago

I almost did that myself.  I almost bought this very rural farm when I was in my early 30s, but it would have made a huge change in my life.

800

Today my advice is to buy land in upper Greenland because it won't be too long for the ice to melt and the land will be tillable.

 
 
 
Just Jim NC TttH
Professor Principal
3  Just Jim NC TttH    3 years ago

Are you a scientist? You do realize that water, as well as all matter, never completely goes away. It isn't possible. It may change state but that's it.

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
4  Ender    3 years ago

Homes can become death traps. One thing people don't realize until it is too late.

We learned that during hurricane Katrina. People were trapped in their houses and were stuck in their attics with no way out. Some people chopped holes in their roofs to get out.

Add to that, some of the older brick homes around here don't even have an attic, basically a crawl space.

 
 
 
Krishna
Professor Expert
4.1  Krishna  replied to  Ender @4    3 years ago

I believe there were some people that were trapped in their homes during California forest fires when there was a sudden unexpected shift in the wind?

 
 
 
Ender
Professor Principal
4.1.1  Ender  replied to  Krishna @4.1    3 years ago

Devastating.

This may sound weird but I loved the older video of the guy that stopped in the flames and saved a rabbit.

I guess in the face of tragedy, every bit of humanity is comforting.

 
 
 
Ed-NavDoc
Professor Quiet
5  Ed-NavDoc    3 years ago

Ironically, I live smack in the middle of the Sonora Desert on the AZ/Mexico border, but the area I live in is actually classified as a flood zone. We get occasional flash floods in normally dry creek beds during rare heavy rainstorms but little actual flooding that causes damage other than to rural roads and small bridges.

 
 
 
Krishna
Professor Expert
5.1  Krishna  replied to  Ed-NavDoc @5    3 years ago

Sounds like you might live not too far from Bob Nelson?

 
 
 
Ed-NavDoc
Professor Quiet
5.1.1  Ed-NavDoc  replied to  Krishna @5.1    3 years ago

Actually, Bob resides in Yuma on the AZ/California border while I reside on the AZ/New Mexico border on the exact opposite side of the state.

 
 

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