After heavy rain triggered severe flooding in parts of the west, a firefighter drowned and the army was sent to help the trapped residents Germany, Disrupting rail, road and river transportation in the most populous areas of the country.
The German Meteorological Agency issued extreme weather warnings to parts of the three western states on Wednesday, and the city of Hagen, with a population of 180,000, declared a state of emergency after the Volm River burst.
Germans voted in September Successor to the prime minister, Angela Merkel (Angela Merkel), extreme weather may raise people’s awareness of global warming, this is a topic that has so far failed to dominate the agenda by the Green Party second only to Merkel’s conservatives.
According to the public broadcaster WDR, the crisis team in Hagen stated that in the next few hours, the water level will reach no more than four times the level in a century, and warned everyone who lives near the river in the town to move to a higher place immediately .
“We usually only see this in winter,” Bernd Mehlig, an environmental officer from North Rhine-Westphalia, the most affected region, told WDR. “Something like this, so strong, is totally unusual in the summer.”
Parts of Hagen are described as being isolated by high water and almost inaccessible. Soldiers must be sent to clear some areas of the city. Residents were also told to leave an area in Düsseldorf, the regional capital.
A nursing home in Hagen had to be evacuated, while firefighters throughout the area were busy pumping water from hundreds of cellars. In a hospital, floods caused elevators to malfunction.
Authorities told the World Development Report that the firefighter died when he lost his footing in the flood and was washed away. Two men aged 53 and 81 were missing elsewhere in the area.
Governor of North Rhine-Westphalia Armin Laschet (Armin Laschet) And conservative candidates to succeed Merkel, Originally scheduled to visit the area on Thursday.
