Hundreds dead and missing, images of devastation due to floods in Europe

Plum Blossom• July 18, 2021 07:29

The death toll from floods in western Germany and Belgium has risen to more than 125, local officials say, as rescuers continue their search for hundreds more missing.

Authorities in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate said 63 people had died in flooding there, while 43 died in the neighboring state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

German officials warned the death toll could rise further and that about 1,300 people in the Ahrweiler district were still unaccounted for, with efforts to contact them hampered by damaged mobile networks.

Experts say such disasters could become more frequent due to climate change. “Some parts of Western Europe have had as much rain in two days as they have in two months,” said Clare Nullis, a spokeswoman for the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Số người chết do lũ lụt tại châu Âu vượt 125 người, hàng trăm người mất tích -2

The city of Schwerte, in the Ruhr region, Germany, is submerged in floodwaters.

While Clare Nullis said it was too early to say whether the floods and previous heatwaves were caused by global warming, the climate crisis “is increasing in the frequency of extreme events while many individual weather events have been shown to be made worse by global warming”.

The death toll from flooding in Belgium has risen to 20, with another 20 missing, Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden said. Most of the dead were found around the city of Liège, a city of 200,000 people, although an evacuation order has been issued for central districts and areas along the Meuse River.

Although there have been no reported casualties, Switzerland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have also been hit hard, with flash floods hitting the Swiss villages of Schleitheim and Beggingen, and several towns in Luxembourg evacuated on July 15. Hundreds of people were also asked to evacuate in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht.

Some images of heavy flood damage in Germany and Belgium:

Số người chết do lũ lụt tại châu Âu vượt 125 người, hàng trăm người mất tích -1