Germany-Belgium floods: Death toll reaches 160 as politicians blame climate change
The death toll from heavy flooding across Germany, Belgium and Holland has now reached 160, as rescue operations and the search for hundreds still unaccounted for continues.
Thousands have been left homeless by the devastating floods that have surged through the region, and hundred are still missing, as the collapse of phone lines hampered efforts to communicate.
Residents in the region have been told by German officials that there is “No all-clear” from danger yet, and people are being evacuated as dykes along a river from Belgium to the Netherlands is at risk of collapse.
High water levels are putting “enormous pressure” on a dam in the North Rine-Westphalia region which has broken in places, which the officials said meant there was “an acute risk” it could rupture.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited a town at the epicentre of the floods today and said, “A lot of people have lost everything they spent their lives building up.”
It comes after he said he was “stunned” by the devastation yesterday and pledged support to the families of those killed and to cities and towns facing significant damage.
“In the hour of need, our country stands together,” he said in a statement. “It’s important that we show solidarity for those from whom the flood has taken everything.”
Most of those killed by the floods were in Germany, where the death toll stands at 133, with more casualties expected.
Of these, police understand that more than 90 people killed were in Germany’s western Ahrweiler county, one of the most badly-hit areas.
Several German officials have blamed climate change for the unprecedented devastation of the floods.
“In my entire political career in Germany I have never seen such a flood with such terrible consequences, with so many deaths and so many people missing,” 72-year-old Horst Seehofer, the German interior minister, told German magazine Der Spiegel.
“No one can seriously doubt that this catastrophe is connected to climate change.”
“Overall, any sensible person must get the fact that freak weather of this intensity and frequency is not a normal phenomenon in this part of the world, but the consequences of man-made global warming.”
European parliament MEP Bas Eickhout, who sits on the environment division, urged politicians to wake up to the fact that freak weather events are becoming more frequent due to climate change, and take action on reducing carbon emissions.
Asked if the floods showed the flood defences in western Europe weren’t up to scratch, Eikhout told the BBC’s Today programme: “All the systems we have in place work for the frequency that they expect – for example a 1 in 100 years event.
“But the frequency is changing because of climate change. We don’t know whether this exact event can be linked to climate change, but we do know that these freak events do occur more frequently.
“So if they now occur every 1 in 20 years, we have to step up again – and that’s where politicians are still not aware that the frequency of these events will get more.”
The Netherlands, Luxembourg and France remain on high alert, as sustained rainfall in Switzerland has caused several rivers and lakes to break their banks.