The number of people who lost their lives in heavy floods in the western part of Germany increased to at least 103 yesterday, German broadcaster ARD reported, in what is Germany’s worst mass loss of life in years.
About 1,300 people were missing in Ahrweiler District south of Cologne, the district government said on Facebook.
Mobile phone networks have collapsed in some of the flood-stricken regions, which means that family and friends were unable to track down their loved ones.
Photo: AFP
Entire communities lay in ruins after swollen rivers swept through towns and villages in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate.
Yesterday morning, houses collapsed in Erftstadt near Cologne, and rescue crews were struggling to help residents who had returned to their houses despite official warnings, the Cologne District government wrote on Facebook.
It said that many people were still in their houses and several were missing.
Photo: AFP
A gas leak was further hampering rescue workers as they tried to reach stranded people by boat.
One dam close to the Belgium border, the Rurtalsperre, was flooded overnight while another, the Steinbachtalsperre, was unstable.
The North Rhine-Westfalia Parliament was to hold an emergency meeting.
German Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer told magazine Der Spiegel that the federal government aimed to provide financial support for the affected regions as quickly as possible.
The proposed measures would be send to the Cabinet for approval on Wednesday next week, Seehofer added..
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