Houses are submerged on the overflowed river banks in Erdorf, Germany. Photo / AP
Houses are submerged on the overflowed river banks in Erdorf, Germany. Photo / AP
At least 19 people have died and dozens of people are missing in Germany after heavy flooding turned streams and streets into raging torrents, sweeping away cars and causing some buildings to collapse.
Authorities in the western county of Euskirchen said today that eight deaths had been reported there inconnection with the floods. Rescue operations were hampered by the fact that phone and internet connections were down in part of the region, which is southwest of Cologne.
Police in the western city of Koblenz said four people had died in Ahrweiler county, and about 50 were trapped on the roofs of their houses awaiting rescue.
A car is covered in Hagen, Germany, with the debris brought by the flooding of the Nahma River the night before. Photo / AP
Six houses had collapsed overnight in the village of Schuld. "Many people have been reported missing to us," police said.
Schuld is in the Eifel, a volcanic region of rolling hills and small valleys southwest of Cologne.
The full extent of the damage in the region was still unclear after many villages were cut off by floodwater and landslides that made roads impassable. Videos posted on social media showed cars floating down streets and houses partly collapsed in some places.
A street is flooded due to persistent storms, in Esch, Germany. Photo / AP
Authorities have declared an emergency in the region after days of heavy rainfall that also affected large parts of western and central Germany, as well as neighbouring countries, causing widespread damage.
Police said four people died in separate incidents after their basements were flooded in Cologne, Kamen and Wuppertal, where authorities warned that a dam threatened to burst.
Authorities in the Rhine-Sieg county south of Cologne ordered the evacuation of several villages below the Steinbachtal reservoir amid fears the dam there could also break.
A photo, taken with a drone, shows the devastation caused by the flooding of the Ahr River in the Eifel village of Schuld, western Germany. Photo / AP
A fireman drowned on Wednesday (local time) during rescue work in the western German town of Altena and another collapsed during rescue operations at a power plant in Werdohl-Elverlingsen. One man was missing in the eastern town of Joehstadt after disappearing while trying to secure his property from rising waters, authorities said.
Rail connections were suspended in large parts of North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany's most populous state. Governor Armin Laschet, who is running to succeed Angela Merkel as Chancellor in this autumn's German election, was expected to visit the flood-hit city of Hagen later on Thursday, local time.
German weather service DWD predicted the rainfall would ease on Thursday.
A resident of the village of Balken looks at the flood waters of the Wupper, in Leichlingen, Germany. Photo / AP
Relentless rains through the night worsened the flooding conditions in eastern Belgium, where one person was reported drowned and at least one other was missing.
Some towns saw water levels rise to unprecedented levels and had their centres turned into gushing rivers.
Major highways were inundated and in the south and east of the nation, the railway service said all traffic was stopped, adding that "alternative transport is highly unlikely".
In eastern Eupen, on the German border, one man was reported dead after he was swept away by a torrent, a local governor told RTBf network.
In Liege, the main city in eastern Belgium, the Meuse river could break its banks by early afternoon and spill into the heart of the city. Police warned the citizens to take precautionary measures.
A man walks by damaged cars in a flooded street in Mery, Province of Liege, Belgium. Photo / AP
Authorities in the southern Dutch town of Valkenburg, close to the German and Belgian borders, evacuated a care home and a hospice overnight amid flooding that turned the tourist town's main street into a river, Dutch media reported.
The Dutch Government sent some 70 troops to the southern province of Limburg late on Wednesday to help with tasks including transporting evacuees and filling sandbags as rivers burst their banks. There were no reports of injuries linked to flooding in the Netherlands.
Unusually intense rains have also inundated a swath of northeast France this week, downing trees and forcing the closure of dozens of roads. A train route to Luxembourg was disrupted, and firefighters evacuated dozens of people from homes near the Luxembourg and German border and in the Marne region, according to local broadcaster France Bleu.
The equivalent of two months of rain has fallen on some areas in the past one or two days, according to the French national weather service. With the ground already saturated, the service forecast more downpours overnight and issued flood warnings for 10 regions.
