Four dead after floods strike southern Germany

world
Four Dead After Floods Strike Southern Germany
Flooding in Germany, © Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Share this article

By AP Reporters

The death toll following floods across a large part of southern Germany has increased to four as three bodies were recovered from inundated basements.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited the flooded region and officials warned that water levels could rise further in some areas.

Advertisement

The body of the 43-year-old, whom rescuers had been looking for since Sunday morning, was found in a basement in the Bavarian town of Schrobenhausen, police told German news agency dpa.


Germany Flooding
The Rhine river overflowed its banks in Hattenheim (dpa via AP)

A firefighter was found dead in nearby Pfaffenhofen on Sunday after an inflatable boat he and colleagues were using capsized.

Advertisement

Later Monday, police said the bodies of a man and a woman were found in a basement in Schorndorf, near Stuttgart, that had been flooded and then pumped dry.

Persistent heavy rain led to widespread flooding in the southern states of Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg over the weekend.

The floods caused extensive transport disruption, with long-distance rail routes to Munich from the north and west out of action on Monday.


Germany Flooding
Persistent heavy rain led to widespread flooding in the southern states of Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg over the weekend (Bernd Wei’brod/dpa/AP)

Advertisement

Mr Scholz visited Reichertshofen, north of Munich, inspecting a sandbagged river bank and meeting regional officials including Markus Soder, Bavaria’s governor.

Mr Soder said that the situation “remains critical and tense”, with water receding in some places but new flooding and evacuations elsewhere.

He noted that water levels are expected to rise in the city of Regensburg and further down the Danube.

Advertisement

Mr Scholz said that “this is not just one event like there have been for centuries”, and that a succession of floods in recent times shows “we cannot neglect the task of halting man-made climate change”.

Read More

Message submitting... Thank you for waiting.

Want us to email you top stories each lunch time?

Download our Apps
© BreakingNews.ie 2024, developed by Square1 and powered by PublisherPlus.com