Germany
US soldier loses 1 Afghan translator; fights to save another
The two men risked their lives together nearly a decade ago trying to eliminate the Taliban, dodging bullets and forever bonding in a way that can only be forged in war.
Now the American soldier and his Afghan translator were together again in Germany shopping for a suit. Abdulhaq Sodais’s future hinges on an asylum hearing in a German court after he was denied a U.S. visa, and U.S. Army Veteran Spencer Sullivan was there to help him prepare.
Together, they watched videos from Sodais’ hometown: The crackle of gunfire, dead bodies being carted off as black smoke billowed. Once U.S. troops withdrew, the fragile government built over years by people like Sodais and Sullivan collapsed in just days.
“I couldn’t stop crying,” Sodais said. “My father said the Taliban were knocking on every single door in Herat looking for guys who worked for the coalition forces.”
Sullivan already lost another translator, Sayed Masoud, who was killed by the Taliban while waiting for a U.S. visa. It’s a scar Sullivan carries deeply, the realization that the U.S. government is capable of the one thing he never believed: betrayal.
Read:Kabul airport attack kills 60 Afghans, 13 US troops
Sullivan was determined not to let Sodais, who used smugglers to get to Europe, suffer the same fate.
So he flew from California to Germany to help Sodais pick out something to wear for his Sept. 6 asylum hearing.
In a world of hurt and uncertainty, buying a suit was the one thing Sullivan could control. It offered a small hope of making a difference.
A professional appearance just might convince a judge to help keep Sodais safe and uphold the sacred vow that America was unable to keep.
“I made a promise to him just as America made a promise to him to protect him and save his life,” Sullivan said. “I mean how can you turn your back on that promise? I don’t think the answer is more complicated than that. I think it’s actually very simple.”
Sullivan is among scores of U.S. combat veterans working on their own to rescue the Afghans who served alongside them.
Their efforts started long before this month’s chaotic rush to evacuate Afghans after the Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan as U.S. forces withdraw from America’s forever war.
Thousands of Afghans who aided US troops have spent years stuck in a backlogged and beleaguered U.S. Special Immigrant Visa program, while frantic messages of the Taliban hunting them down have been pinging the phones of the American soldiers they helped on the battlefield.
The program was meant to award Afghans for their support by giving them and their families a pathway to the United States. But it has fallen far short, with Congress failing to approve enough visas each year, while the former Trump administration added new security requirements and bureaucratic hurdles that turned the average wait time from a few months into nearly three years.
Others have been denied over what immigration attorneys say were minor or unjust discrepancies in their performance records. Many now fear that the time they were marked as late to work, unfairly or accidentally even, may cost them their escape, and possibly their life.
Sodais and Masoud stood out among the dozen interpreters who worked with the platoon Sullivan led in Afghanistan from 2012 to 2013.
Both interpreters went with his platoon on dozens of missions into villages controlled by the Taliban, taking on fire while unarmed.
In 2013, Masoud applied for a special immigrant visa after receiving death threats for his work. His application included a letter of recommendation from Sullivan who described him as “punctual and professional, an exemplary linguist and trustworthy friend.”
“Granting him a special immigration visa is the least that can be done in order to express America’s gratitude for his services,” Sullivan wrote.
Two years later, Masoud’s application was denied. The U.S. embassy said he had not worked for the U.S. government or its military. In fact, Masoud was hired by a U.S. firm that had a contract with the Department of Defense to provide linguistic services to troops in Afghanistan.
Masoud appealed and Sullivan wrote another letter to the Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy, Kabul, providing more details of his work, but he got no response.
Sullivan reached out to other veterans to see what he could do. He learned he could pay $20,000 to get Masoud smuggled out, but he didn’t want to support a criminal network. Instead, he hoped the U.S. government would come through on its end.
Meanwhile, Masoud’s texts to Sullivan became more sporadic as the threats escalated, forcing him to move from house to house.
“He was becoming increasingly frantic and afraid,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan got the last one in the summer of 2017.
“Hello sir. I am so sorry to reply you late. I got a problem,” Masoud wrote, apologizing for not keeping in better touch with his friend.
“Hey Sayed it’s OK!” Sullivan texted back. “Are you safe?”
Sullivan never got a reply.
Weeks later, Masoud’s brother answered an email Sullivan sent to Masoud’s account: Masoud had been shot by the Taliban after returning home for a relative’s funeral and was dead.
Sullivan was consumed by sadness and guilt. He felt partly responsible since he had posted Facebook pictures of them and wondered if he had put his friend at risk. He wondered, too, if he could have done more to protect him.
“I felt helpless,” he said. “I didn’t know what else I could have done. Maybe I should have spent the $20,000 to pay seedy smugglers.”
A year and 1/2 after his death, Sullivan got an email from the U.S. embassy in Kabul informing him that the Afghanistan Special Immigrant Visa Unit had received his recommendation letter for Masoud.
Read: What's happening with Afghanistan evacuations?
The official wanted to know if the letter was legitimate and if Sullivan would still recommend the applicant so they could begin the process. It included a photo of Masoud with his thick red hair and thin moustache.
Sullivan wrote back to the embassy to inform them that Masoud had been killed while waiting more than four years for his application to be processed.
After Masoud’s death, Sullivan texted Sodais to tell him what had happened to his fellow translator. But he got no reply.
Like Masoud, Sodais also had applied for a special immigrant visa in 2013 and was denied. He applied again in 2015 and 2016. Sullivan sent the U.S. embassy in Kabul letters to support his case.
His last rejection came in 2017. After Sodais’ uncle was beheaded, and his neighbor, who worked as a fuel truck driver for coalition forces, was gunned down by the Taliban while standing in his front doorway, Sodais, who taught himself English using library books because he admired America and believed in its mission, decided he had to find another way out.
His plan would be to go to Europe by land. His brother, who knew someone in a travel agency, helped him get a tourist visa to Iran, and his family knew an Afghan man living there who would end up connecting Sodais to the first of a long line of smugglers.
Sodais left with a backpack full of clothes, and $100 worth of Iranian rials.
Along the way, he met other Afghans who worked for coalition forces also now turning to smugglers to find safe refuge.
Sodais was crammed into cars with refugees stacked on top of each on the floors. They hiked through the mountains in a snowstorm at night and dodged gunfire from Turkish border guards. He was beaten and abandoned by smugglers and jailed and beaten by police.
Meanwhile, his family back in Afghanistan was forced to move because of the Taliban’s growing presence in the area, and urged him to get to safety. He decided to head to Germany since Turkey and Greece were deporting Afghans at the time. His family sold their small general store in Afghanistan to fund his journey.
In the end, it took him seven months and would cost his family $15,000 to get to Germany. Once there, he applied for asylum but was lacking sufficient photos or documentation to support his claims and was immediately denied.
He called Sullivan, who he had not spoken to in more than a year.
“I was like ‘oh my God, he’s alive!’” Sullivan recounted, feeling overjoyed.
Four months later, Sullivan went to see him in Germany and offered to help his case.
Sullivan wrote a transcript for the German court. He sent him photos of his time with his platoon and wrote to the U.S. government to get his record, which showed his contract was terminated in 2013 due to “job abandonment.”
Sodais says he overextended his 30-day leave after going home to deal with a back injury from the blast of an improvised explosive device during a mission.
He was rehired in 2014 by the U.S. military but his contract was administered by a civilian contractor who terminated it in 2016 due to poor job performance.
Sullivan contacted the civilian defense contractor who fired Sodais in 2016 to ask what happened since he had found his work exemplary, but she refused to help him or provide an explanation. The paperwork she signed stated only that he was being released due to “incompatible skill set with the unit’s mission.”
She also would not answer questions about whether she remembered Sodais or had a security concern when contacted by The Associated Press.
Sodais said she falsely accused him of checking his personal Facebook page on the job.
Sodais fell into a deep depression after two years of waiting for a decision by the German courts. The fear of being deported was overwhelming, and he suffered headaches, back aches and other ailments from injuries from the IED blast.
In March of 2020, he tried to end his life, overdosing on pain medication. He spent nearly two months in a psychiatric ward after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
When he got out, he messaged Sullivan.
“I’m alive right now because of Spencer, because of him,” Sodais said later.
Sullivan said he’s just keeping the promise he made on the battlefield. He is helping Sodais write a book to shed light on the experience of Afghan refugees.
For now, Sodais is safe. On Aug. 11, Germany temporarily halted the deportation of all Afghans due to the upheaval but did not specify how long the order would last.
“Germany is filling our moral void,” Sullivan said of the U.S. government’s failure to help.
But Sodais worries his luck will run out once deportations resume.
“Really sometimes, it’s really hard for me to fight against this life,” he said on a Zoom call with Sullivan as he rattled off his fears over what’s happening in Afghanistan, his guilt over not being able to save his family there, and his anxiety over whether he will ever have a future.
And how will he ever get to the United States, where he wants to live? he asks.
Read:G-7 grapples with Afghanistan, an afterthought not long ago
Sullivan interrupts, stopping his downward spiral, and reminds him to stay focused on the Sept. 6 asylum hearing.
“Step one is we keep you alive,” he said. “We get you asylum in Germany and everything else will follow.”
Sullivan had to stay focused, too. Sodais was the one U.S. ally he felt he could possibly save. Days later, he would get an email from Masoud’s brother, who worked for a U.S. military base, pleading for help. He included photos of his mother and uncle who were recently killed.
Sullivan knew there was little he could do since they had never worked together.
At the suit store in Bremen, on Sullivan’s second visit, Sodais exited the dressing room in a black suit.
“Nice! Do a spin,” Sullivan joked, twirling his finger and patting his friend on back as they look in mirror. “You’re looking sharp.”
Sodais chuckled.
It is a moment of lightness after talking about what they’ve been through and what’s to come.
Before Sullivan leaves, Sodais breaks down, and Sullivan embraces him as he sobs.
“It’s OK,” Sullivan says. “You’re going to make it.”
Germany to provide $68 billion in aid for flood-hit regions
The German government agreed Tuesday to provide 58 billion euros ($68 billion) to help rebuild regions hit by devastating floods last month.
Chancellor Angela Merkel and the heads of Germany’s 16 states approved the state flood aid package, which still needs parliament’s endorsement.
“This is significantly more than we had for previous floods,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin.
More than 180 people died in Germany and hundreds more were injured in the July 14-15 floods, which also claimed lives in neighboring Belgium. Heavy rainfall turned small streams into raging torrents, sweeping away houses, bridges and cars.
A United Nations science panel released a report this week predicting that such extreme weather events will become more frequent as the planet heats up further.
READ: 30-metre span of flood control dam collapses into Jamuna
The cost of the German aid package — agreed just weeks before the country’s national election on Sept. 26 — will be shared evenly by the federal government and states, with the latter’s payments spread over 30 years.
The two sides also agreed to establish a nationwide siren network and introduce a system that will allow authorities to send push messages to people’s cellphones to warn them of possible disasters. Prosecutors are investigating whether officials failed to adequately alert residents on the night of the floods.
READ: Flood-affected people in Cox’s Bazar cry for food and drinking water
The government will also examine the possibility of introducing a compulsory insurance for floods and other weather-related damages.
At least 2 killed in German chemical blast; 31 injured
An explosion at an industrial park for chemical companies in Germany killed at least two people on Tuesday, with 31 others injured and several still missing hours later. Fire officials who tested the air said there did not appear to be a danger to nearby residents after authorities initially urged people to shelter inside.
The explosion at the waste management facility of the Chempark site in Leverkusen, near Cologne, sent a large black cloud into the air. It took firefighters almost four hours to extinguish the fire that took hold after the explosion.
Read:Residents say flood-hit German towns got little warning
Germany’s Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance initially classified the incident as “an extreme threat.” Later on Tuesday, however, the Cologne fire department tweeted that pollution measurements “do not show any kind of abnormality.” They said the smoke had diminished but that they would continue to measure the air for toxins.
The city of Leverkusen said the explosion occurred in storage tanks for solvents.
Later Tuesday, Chempark operator Currenta said that a second fatality had been confirmed. It put the number of injured at 31 and said five employees were missing.
“Unfortunately hope of finding them alive is fading rapidly,” the head of Chempark, Lars Friedrich, said in a statement.
City officials asked all residents to stay inside until the late afternoon and warned people from outside Leverkusen to avoid the region. City officials later also warned people not to let children play outside, use outside pools or eat fruit and vegetables from their backyards in the coming days. They said experts would only be able to tell in a few days how toxic the soot from the explosion would be.
Read:Germany defends preparation for floods, considers lessons
Currenta said the explosion happened at 9:40 a.m. and then developed into a fire. It said three big tanks were affected by the explosion, but that it was too early to know the cause.
“Sirens were operated to warn residents and warning alerts were sent,” Currenta said.
Police shut down several nearby major highways for several hours.
Leverkusen is home to Bayer, one of Germany’s biggest chemical companies. It has about 163,000 residents and borders Cologne, which is Germany’s fourth biggest city and has around 1 million inhabitants. Many residents work at Bayer, which is one of the biggest employers in the region.
The chemical park is located close to the banks of the Rhine river.
Read: 19 dead, dozens missing in Germany floods; 2 die in Belgium
Currenta has three facilities in the region. More than 70 different companies are based at the locations in Leverkusen, Dormagen and Krefeld-Uerdingen.
The mayor of Leverkusen, Uwe Richrath, called the blast “a tragic moment for Leverkusen.”
Residents say flood-hit German towns got little warning
Like other residents of his town in Germany, Wolfgang Huste knew a flood was coming. What nobody told him, he says, was how bad it would be.
The 66-year-old antiquarian bookseller from Ahrweiler said the first serious warning to evacuate or move to higher floors of buildings close to the Ahr River came through loudspeaker announcements around 8 p.m. on July 14. Huste then heard a short emergency siren blast and church bells ringing, followed by silence.
Read:Germany defends preparation for floods, considers lessons
“It was spooky, like in a horror film,” he said.
Huste rushed to rescue his car from an underground garage. By the time he parked it on the street, the water stood knee height. Five minutes later, safely indoors, he saw his vehicle floating down the street. He estimates the losses in his store, where books dating back to the early 1500s were destroyed, at more than 200,000 euros ($235,000).
“The warning time was far too short,” Huste said.
With the confirmed death toll from last week’s floods in Germany and neighboring countries passing 210, almost 150 people still missing and the economic cost expected to run into the billions, many have asked why the emergency systems designed to warn people of impending disaster didn’t work.
Sirens in some towns failed when the electricity was cut. In other locations, there were no sirens at all; volunteer firefighters had to knock on people’s doors to tell them what to do. The German weekly Der Spiegel reported that in one suburb of Wuppertal, north of Cologne, people were warned by a monk ringing a bell.
Huste acknowledged that few could have predicted the speed with which the water would rise and rip through towns. But he pointed across the valley to a building that houses Germany’s Federal Office for Civil Protection, where first responders from across the country train for possible disasters.
“In practice, as we just saw, it didn’t work, let’s say, as well as it should,” Huste said. “What the state should have done, it didn’t do. At least not until much later.”
German authorities did receive early warnings from the European Flood Awareness System. These made their way through official channels, putting firefighters on heightened alert as well as smartphone users who had installed disaster warning apps, but such apps aren’t widely used.
Local officials responsible for triggering disaster alarms in the Ahr valley on the first night of flooding have kept a low profile since the deluge. At least 132 people were killed in the Ahr valley alone.
Authorities in Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate state took charge of the disaster response in the wake of the floods, but they declined to comment on what mistakes might have been made on the night the disaster struck.
Read:Merkel tours ‘surreal’ flood scene, vows aid, climate action
“People are looking at a life in ruins here. Some have lost relatives, there were many dead,” said Thomas Linnertz, the state official now coordinating the disaster response. “I can understand the anger very well. But on the other hand, I have to say again: This was an event that nobody could have predicted.”
The head of Germany’s federal disaster agency BKK, Armin Schuster, acknowledged to public broadcaster ARD that “things didn’t work as well as they could have.”
His agency is trying to determine how many sirens were removed after the end of the Cold War. Germany also plans to adopt a system known as ‘cell broadcast’ that can send alerts to all cellphones in a particular area.
In the town of Sinzig, Heiko Lemke recalled how firefighters came knocking on doors at 2 a.m., long after the floods had caused severe damage upriver in Ahrweiler.
Despite a heavy flood in 2016, nobody had expected the waters of the Ahr River to rise as high as they did in his community, Lemke said.
“They were evacuating people,” he said. “We were totally confused because we thought that wasn’t possible.”
Within 20 minutes, water had flooded the ground floor of his family’s house, but they decided it was too dangerous to venture out, he said.
“We wouldn’t have managed to make it around the corner,” said his wife, Daniela Lemke.
Twelve residents of a nearby assisted living facility for people with disabilities drowned in the flood. Police are probing whether staff at the facility could have done more to save the residents, but so far there is no suggestion that authorities could face a criminal investigation for failing to issue timely warnings.
Read:Europe flooding toll over 180 as rescuers dig deeper
Experts say such floods will become more frequent and severe due to climate change, and countries will need to adapt, including by revising calculations about future flood risks, improving warning systems and preparing people for similar disasters.
Now that he knows about the flood risk, Heiko Lemke hopes all those things will happen.
“But maybe it would be even better to leave,” he added.
Germany defends preparation for floods, considers lessons
German officials are defending their preparations for flooding in the face of the raging torrents that caught many people by surprise and left over 180 people dead in Western Europe, but they concede that they will need to learn lessons from the disaster.
Efforts to find any more victims and clean up the mess left behind by the floods across a swath of western Germany, eastern Belgium and the Netherlands continued on Monday as floodwaters receded.
Read:Merkel tours ‘surreal’ flood scene, vows aid, climate action
The downpours that led to usually small rivers swelling at vast speed in the middle of last week had been forecast, but warnings of potentially catastrophic damage didn’t appear to have found their way to many people on the ground — often in the middle of the night.
“As soon as we have provided the immediate aid that stands at the forefront now, we will have to look at whether there were things that didn’t go well, whether there were things that went wrong, and then they have to be corrected,” Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told the Bild newspaper. “That isn’t about finger-pointing — it’s about improvements for the future.”
The head of Germany’s civil protection agency said that the country’s weather service had “forecast relatively well” and that the country was well-prepared for flooding on its major rivers.
Read:Europe flooding toll over 180 as rescuers dig deeper
But, Armin Schuster told ZDF television late Sunday, “half an hour before, it is often not possible to say what place will be hit with what quantity” of water. He said that his agency had sent 150 warning notices out via apps and media.
He said he couldn’t yet say where sirens sounded and where they didn’t — “we will have to investigate that.”
Officials in the worst-affected German state, Rhineland-Palatinate, said they were well-prepared for flooding and municipalities had been alerted and acted.
Read:Deadly flooding, heatwaves in Europe, highlight urgency of climate action: WMO
But the state’s interior minister, Roger Lewentz, said after visiting the hard-hit village of Schuld with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday that “we of course had the problem that the technical infrastructure — electricity and so on — was destroyed in one go.”
Local authorities “tried very quickly to react,” he said. “But this was an explosion of the water in moments. ... You can have the very best preparations and warning situations (but) if warning equipment is destroyed and carried away with buildings, then that is a very difficult situation.”
Merkel tours ‘surreal’ flood scene, vows aid, climate action
German Chancellor Angela Merkel surveyed what she called a “surreal, ghostly” scene in a devastated village on Sunday, pledging quick financial aid and a redoubled political focus on curbing climate change as the death toll from floods in Western Europe climbed above 180.
Merkel toured Schuld, a village on a tight curve of the Ahr River in western Germany where many buildings were damaged or destroyed by rapidly rising floodwaters Wednesday night.
Although the mayor of Schuld said no one was killed or injured there, many other places weren’t so lucky. The death toll in the Ahrweiler area, where Schuld is located, stood at 112. Authorities said people are still missing and they fear the toll may still rise.
In neighboring North Rhine-Westphalia state, Germany’s most populous, 46 people were killed, including four firefighters. Belgium confirmed 31 deaths.
Read:Europe flooding toll over 180 as rescuers dig deeper
Merkel said she came away from Schuld, still partly strewn with rubble and mud in bright sunshine, with “a real picture of, I must say, the surreal, ghostly situation.”
“It is shocking — I would almost say that the German language barely has words for the devastation that has been wreaked,” she said at a news conference in a nearby town.
Merkel said authorities will work to “set the world right again in this beautiful region, step by step,” and her Cabinet will approve an immediate and medium-term financial aid program on Wednesday.
Finance Minister Olaf Scholz told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that more than 300 million euros ($354 million) will be needed immediately. And he said officials must set up a longer-term rebuilding program which, from experience with previous flooding, will be in the billions of euros.
“Thankfully, Germany is a country that can manage this financially,” said Merkel, who is stepping down as chancellor following an election in September. “Germany is a strong country and we will stand up to this force of nature in the short term — but also in the medium and long term, through policy that pays more regard to nature and the climate than we did in recent years. That will be necessary too.”
Climate scientists say the link between extreme weather and global warming is unmistakable and the urgency to tackle climate change undeniable.
Scientists can’t yet say for sure whether climate change caused the flooding, but they insist that it certainly exacerbates the extreme weather disasters on display around the world.
“We must get faster in the battle against climate change,” Merkel said, pointing to policies already set in motion by Germany and the European Union to cut greenhouse gas emissions. “And nevertheless, the second lesson is that we must pay great attention to adaptation” to climate change.
Investing in fighting climate change is expensive, she said, but failing to do so is even more costly.
“One flood isn’t the example of climate change, but if we look at the loss events of recent years, decades, then they are simply more frequent than they were previously — so we must make a great effort,” Merkel said.
Read:Deadly flooding, heatwaves in Europe, highlight urgency of climate action: WMO
Residents in the devastated areas will be needing support and comfort for a long time yet.
“This flood will leave scars on the people of Schuld — scars that you don’t forget, that can’t be overcome, because our lives changed from one day to the next,” Mayor Helmut Lussi said, breaking into sobs as he spoke.
Although the rain has stopped in the worst-affected areas of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, storms and downpours have persisted elsewhere in western and central Europe. There was flooding Saturday night in the German-Czech border area, in Germany’s southeastern corner, and over the border in Austria.
About 130 people were evacuated in Germany’s Berchtesgaden area after the Ache River swelled. At least one person was killed and the rail line to Berchtesgaden was closed.
The Berchtesgaden area also is the home of the sliding track in Koenigssee, the site of major international bobsled, skeleton and luge events for more than 50 years. Large segments of that track were destroyed, parts of the concrete chute turned into rubble by the rushing water.
A flash flood hit the nearby Austrian town of Hallein late Saturday, but there were no reports of casualties. Farther west, flooding struck parts of the town of Kufstein. Heavy rain and storms caused serious damage in several parts of Austria.
Pope Francis prayed for the flood victims and in support of the “efforts of all to help those who suffered great damage.”
“I express my closeness to the populations of Germany, Belgium and Holland, hit by catastrophic flooding,” he said Sunday in his first public appearance to the faithful in St. Peter’s Square after major surgery. “May the Lord welcome the deceased and comfort the family members.”
In the eastern Belgian town of Pepinster, soldiers and firefighters on Sunday searched for any remaining survivors or bodies, according to public broadcaster RTBF. All the houses still standing have been searched, so the effort focused on those that collapsed and in a valley downstream for anyone possibly swept away by the raging torrent.
The ground in the town remains unstable and several more houses could collapse. “We have to be careful with every step we take,” fire officer Olivier Jiust was quoted as saying.
Read:Death toll from Europe floods tops 150 as water recedes
The flood-stricken Dutch town of Venlo allowed most residents back home Sunday, and trains began running again in the area, authorities said.
Meanwhile, a cow swept 100 kilometers (60 miles) along a flooded Dutch river will live out its days in a meadow, according to its owner. Farmer Har Smeets told local broadcaster 1Limburg that he lost 10 other cows to high water in the southern part of the Netherlands, but one was found by a cyclist outside the town of Escharen and rescued by firefighters.
The cow, originally from the town of Echt, was seen Saturday standing with only its nose poking out of the muddy water of the Maas River, unable to free itself. Fire brigades managed to pull the animal onto dry land, and authorities traced the owner via an ear tag. Smeets says the cow has eaten and is resting comfortably.
“It is unbelievable that such an animal can swim or float for so long and then still have the strength to come ashore,” he said.
Europe flooding toll over 180 as rescuers dig deeper
The death toll from flooding in Western Europe climbed above 180 on Sunday after rescue workers dug deeper into debris left by receding waters.
Read:Deadly flooding, heatwaves in Europe, highlight urgency of climate action: WMO
Police put the toll from the hard-hit Ahrweiler area of western Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate state at 110 and said they feared the number may still rise. In neighboring North Rhine-Westphalia state, Germany’s most populous, 45 people were confirmed dead, including four firefighters. And Belgium has confirmed 27 casualties.
Chancellor Angela Merkel was due to visit Schuld, a village near Ahrweiler that was devastated by the flooding, later Sunday. Her visit comes after Germany’s president went to the area on Saturday and made clear that it will need long-term support.
Read:Europe floods shows need to curb emissions, adapt
There was flooding Saturday night in the German-Czech border area, across the country from where last week’s floods hit, and in Germany’s southeastern corner and over the border in Austria.
Some 65 people were evacuated in Germany’s Berchtesgaden area after the Ache River swelled. At least one person was killed.
A flash flood swept through the nearby Austrian town of Hallein late Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.
Read:Death toll from Europe floods tops 150 as water recedes
Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Twitter that heavy rain and storms were causing serious damage in several parts of Austria.
Death toll from Europe floods tops 160 as water recedes
Rescue workers labored to deal with damage laid bare by receding water Saturday as the death toll from disastrous flooding in Western Europe rose above 160 and thoughts turned to the lengthy job of rebuilding communities devastated in minutes.
The death toll in western Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate state, home to the badly hit Ahrweiler county, rose to 98. Another 43 people were confirmed dead in neighboring North Rhine-Westphalia state. Belgium’s national crisis center said the country’s confirmed death toll rose to 27.
Days of heavy rain turned normally minor rivers and streets into raging torrents this week and caused the disastrous flooding that swept away cars, engulfed homes and trapped residents.
Immediately after the floods hit on Wednesday and Thursday, German authorities listed large numbers of people as missing — something apparently caused in large part by confusion, multiple reporting and communications difficulties in the affected areas, some of which lacked electricity and telephone service.
By Saturday, authorities still feared finding more people dead, but said numbers unaccounted for had dropped constantly, without offering specific figures. In Belgium, 103 people were listed as missing Saturday, but the crisis center said lost or uncharged cellphones and people taken to hospitals without identification who hadn’t had an opportunity to contact relatives were believed to be factors in the tally.
Meanwhile, the receding floodwaters eased access across much of the affected regions and revealed the extent of the damage.
“A lot of people have lost everything they spent their lives building up — their possessions, their home, the roof over their heads,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after meeting rescue workers and others in the town of Erftstadt.
“It may only be possible to clear up in weeks how much damage needs to be compensated,” he said.
Steinmeier said that people in the affected areas need continuing support.
“Many people here in these regions have nothing left but their hope, and we must not disappoint this hope,” he said.
In Erftstadt, a town southwest of Cologne, a harrowing rescue effort unfolded on Friday when the ground in a neighborhood gave way. At least three houses and part of a mansion in the town’s Blessem district collapsed.
The German military used armored vehicles to clear away cars and trucks overwhelmed by the floodwaters on a nearby road, some of which remained at least partly submerged. Officials feared that some people didn’t manage to escape in Erftstadt, but no casualties were confirmed by Saturday afternoon.
In the Ahrweiler area, police warned of a potential risk from downed power lines and urged curious visitors to stay away. They complained on Twitter that would-be sightseers were blocking some roads.
Around 700 people were evacuated from part of the German town of Wassenberg, on the Dutch border, after the breach of a dike on the Rur river.
Visiting Erftstadt with Steinmeier, North Rhine-Westphalia governor Armin Laschet promised to organize aid for those immediately affected “in the coming days.” He said regional and federal authorities would discuss in the coming days how to help rebuilding efforts. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Cabinet plans to discuss the issue on Wednesday.
“We will do everything so that what needs to be rebuilt can be rebuilt,” Laschet said.
In eastern Belgium, train lines and roads remained blocked in many areas.
A cafe owner in the devastated town of Pepinster broke down in tears when King Philippe and Queen Mathilde visited Friday to offer comfort to residents. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo visited flood-damaged towns Saturday.
A resident of the Belgian town of Herk-de-Stad said she put off sleeping to try to empty her house of water.
“We have been pumping all night long trying to get the water out of the house,” Elke Lenaerts told broadcaster VTM on Saturday.
Parts of the southern Netherlands also experienced heavy flooding, though thousands of residents were allowed to return home Saturday morning after being evacuated on Thursday and Friday.
Caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who visited the region on Friday, said that “first, there was corona, now these floods, and soon people will have to work on cleanup and recovery.”
“It is disaster after disaster after disaster. But we will not abandon Limburg,” the southern province hit by the floods, he added. His government has declared the flooding a state of emergency, opening up national funds for those affected.
Among other efforts to help the flood victims, the Hertog Jan brewery, which is based in the affected area, handed out 3,000 beer crates so locals could raise their belongings off the ground to protect them from the flooding.
An emergency dike in the town of Horn didn’t hold and some houses were inundated. Authorities issued a warning to stay off the Maas River because of debris, and rescuers worked to save a cow stuck neck deep in muddy waters.
READ: Rescuers race to prevent more deaths from European floods
READ: Rescuers rush to help as Europe’s flood toll surpasses 125
Rescuers race to prevent more deaths from European floods
In one flooded German town, the ground collapsed under family homes. In another, floodwaters swept through an assisted living center, killing 12.
Rescue workers across Germany and Belgium rushed Friday to prevent more deaths from some of the Continent’s worst flooding in years as the number of dead surpassed 125 and the search went on for hundreds of missing people.
Fueled by days of heavy rain, the floodwaters also left thousands of Germans homeless after their dwellings were destroyed or deemed to be at risk, and elected officials began to worry about the lingering economic effects from lost homes and businesses.
Elsewhere in Europe, dikes on swollen rivers were at risk of collapsing, and crews raced to reinforce flood barriers.
Sixty-three people perished in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, including 12 residents of an assisted living facility for disabled people in the town of Sinzig who were surprised by a sudden rush of water from the nearby Ahr River, authorities said.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was “stunned” by the devastation 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,” Steinmeier said in a televised statement. “It’s important that we show solidarity for those from whom the flood has taken everything.”
By Friday evening, waters were receding across much of the affected regions, but officials feared that more bodies might be found in cars and trucks that were swept away.
READ: Rescuers rush to help as Europe’s flood toll surpasses 125
A harrowing rescue effort unfolded in the German town of Erftstadt, southwest of Cologne, where people were trapped when the ground gave way and their homes collapsed.
Fifty people were rescued from their houses, county administrator Frank Rock told German broadcaster n-tv. Aerial photos showed what appeared to be a massive landslide at a gravel pit on the town’s edge.
“One has to assume that under the circumstances some people didn’t manage to escape,” Rock said.
Authorities cautioned that the large number of missing could stem from duplicated reports and difficulties reaching people because of closed roads and disrupted phone service.
After Germany, where the death toll stood at 106, Belgium was the hardest hit. The country confirmed the deaths of 20 people, with another 20 still missing, Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden told the VRT network Friday.
Several dikes on the Meuse Rriver that runs from Belgium into the Netherlands were at risk of collapsing, Verlinden said. Authorities in the southern Dutch town of Venlo evacuated 200 hospital patients due to the river’s looming threat.
Utility companies reported widespread disruption of electricity and gas service that they said could last for days or weeks.
The governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, who hopes to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel as the nation’s leader after Germany’s election on Sept. 26, said the disaster had caused immense economic damage to the country’s most populous state. The number of dead in North Rhine-Westphalia stood at 43.
“The floods have literally pulled the ground from beneath many people’s feet,” Gov. Armin Laschet said at a news conference. “They lost their houses, farms or businesses.”
Manfred Pesch, a hotel owner in the small village of Gemuend, recounted how the floods came suddenly and rose to 2 meters (over 6 feet).
“Our hotel needs to be rebuilt,” he said. “We need a lot of help.”
Wolfgang Meyer, owner of a painting business in Gemuend, said his family escaped the rising water, but his business was swamped.
“The machinery, equipment, the entire office, files, records ... everything is gone actually,” he said. “We’re going to have some work to do there.”
Malu Dreyer, the governor of Rhineland-Palatinate state, said the disaster showed the need to speed up efforts to curb global warming, which experts say could make such disasters more frequent.
She accused Laschet and Merkel’s center-right Union bloc of hindering efforts to achieve greater greenhouse gas reductions in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy and a major emitter of planet-warming gases.
“Climate change isn’t abstract anymore. We are experiencing it up close and painfully,” she told the Funke media group.
Steinmeier, the German president, echoed her calls for greater efforts to combat global warming.
“Only if we decisively take up the fight against climate change will we be able to limit the extreme weather conditions we are now experiencing,” he said.
The World Meteorological Organization said some parts of Western Europe have received up to two months of rainfall in the space of two days.
READ: Over 60 dead, dozens missing as severe floods strike Europe
“What made it worse is that the soils were already saturated by previous rainfall,” WMO spokesperson Clare Nullis said.
She said it was too soon to blame the floods and preceding heat wave on rising global temperatures but added: “Climate change is already increasing the frequency of extreme events. And many single events have been shown to be made worse by global warming.”
The German military deployed over 850 troops to help with flood efforts, and the need for help was growing, Defense Ministry spokesman Arne Collatz said. He said the ministry had triggered a “military disaster alarm.”
Italy sent civil protection officials, firefighters and rescue dinghies to Belgium to help in the search for missing people.
In the southern Dutch province of Limburg, which also has been hit hard by flooding, troops piled sandbags to strengthen a 1.1-kilometer (0.7 mile) stretch of dike along the Maas River, and police helped evacuate low-lying neighborhoods.
Caretaker Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the government was officially declaring flooded regions disaster areas, making businesses and residents eligible for compensation. Dutch King Willem-Alexander visited the region Thursday night and called the scenes “heartbreaking.”
Meanwhile, heavy rain in Switzerland caused several rivers and lakes to burst their banks. Public broadcaster SRF reported that a flash flood swept away cars, flooded basements and destroyed small bridges late Thursday in the northern villages of Schleitheim und Beggingen.
READ: Over 40 dead, dozens missing as severe floods strike Europe
Erik Schulz, the mayor of the hard-hit German city of Hagen, 50 kilometers (31 miles) northeast of Cologne, said a wave of other regions and ordinary citizens were offering to help.
“We have many, many citizens saying ‘I can offer a place to stay. Where can I go to help? ... Where can I bring my shovel and bucket?’” he told n-tv. “The city is standing together, and you can feel that.”
Rescuers rush to help as Europe’s flood toll surpasses 125
Emergency workers in western German and Belgium rushed Friday to rescue hundreds of people in danger or still unaccounted for as the death toll from devastating floods rose to more than 125 people.
Authorities in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate said 63 people had died there, including 12 residents of an assisted living facility for disabled people in the town of Sinzig who were surprised by a sudden rush of water from the nearby Ahr River. In neighboring North Rhine-Westphalia state officials put the death toll at 43, but warned that the figure could increase.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was “stunned” by the devastation caused by the flooding 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,” Steinmeier said in a statement. “It’s important that we show solidarity for those from whom the flood has taken everything.”
A harrowing rescue effort unfolded In the German town of Erftstadt, southwest of Cologne, where people were trapped when the ground gave way and their homes collapsed.
“We managed to get 50 people out of their houses last night,” county administrator Frank Rock told German broadcaster n-tv.
Aerial photos showed what appeared to be a massive landslide at a gravel pit on the town’s edge..
“One has to assume that under the circumstances some people didn’t manage to escape,” Rock said.
Authorities were trying to account for hundreds of people listed as missing, but they cautioned that the high number could be due to duplicated reports and difficulties reaching people because of disrupted roads and phone service.
Also read: Over 60 dead, dozens missing as severe floods strike Europe
After Germany, where the death toll stood at 106, Belgium was the hardest hit by the floods that caused homes to be ripped away. Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden told the VRT network Friday that the country had confirmed the deaths of 20 people, with another 20 still missing.
Water levels on the Meuse Rriver that runs from Belgium into the Netherlands remains critical, and several dikes were at risk of collapsing, Verlinden said. Authorities in the southern Dutch town of Venlo evacuated 200 hospital patients due to the looming threat of flooding from the river.
Flash floods this week followed days of heavy rainfall in Western Europe. Thousands of people remained homeless in Germany after their houses were destroyed or deemed at-risk by authorities.
The governor of North Rhine-Westphalia, who is hoping to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel as the nation’s leader after Germany’s election on Sept. 26, said the disaster had caused immense economic damage to the country’s most densely populated state.
“The floods have literally pulled the ground from beneath many people’s feet,” Gov. Armin Laschet said at a news conference. “They lost their houses, farms or businesses.”