Europe: Catastrophic flooding in Western Europe killed over 120 people while hundreds went missing, authorities reported on Friday.
Rising water levels caused widespread power outages and displacements. Aerial images of Belgium and Germany showed submerged villages and floating cars in between debris of the collapsed buildings. The Netherlands and Luxembourg have also been affected by the extreme rainfall.
In Germany, at least 103 people have been killed across two western states.
On Thursday, the DWD predicted that the “worst of the torrential rainfall is over,” although more heavy rain is expected in southwestern Germany on Friday.
In the hard-hit district of Ahrweiler, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, authorities said that 1,300 people remained unaccounted for. “There is no end in sight just yet,” Ulrich Sopart, a police spokesman in the city of Koblenz reported. At least 165,000 people are currently without power in Rhineland-Palatinate and the neighboring state of North Rhine-Westphalia, authorities reported.
North Rhine-Westphalia reported 43 deaths. The state’s Interior Ministry spokeswoman Katja Heins said ”The situation remains very dynamic – we do not know how many people are unaccounted for.”
German weather service has attributed the intense rainfall as a result of a slow-moving area of low pressure, which allowed a conveyor belt of warm and moist air.
In neighboring Belgium, at least 22 people have died, authorities said Friday. Some 21,000 people faced power outages in the Southern region of Wallonia.