German Chancellor Angela Merkel toured areas of the western state of Rhineland Palatinate where riverside communities were turned into disaster zones last week after a once-in-a-century summer rainfall. She described the scene as “haunting.”
By Loveday Morris, Washington Post
“The German language hardly knows words for the devastation that has been wrought,” she said in front of the town hall in Adenau, in Germany’s Eifel district, one of the areas hit hardest. She promised financial aid to get the affected regions back on their feet.
“Fortunately, Germany is a country that can cope with this financially,” she said. “We will resist this force of nature.
But the scale of the destruction is mammoth. The force of the water ripped facades off houses, left cars hanging in trees, and crumpled roads and bridges. Rivers are clogged with twisted railway bridges, cars, and caravans, and many areas remain without power or water.
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Merkel tours the flood damage in Germany
Merkel also visited the village of Schuld, a picturesque village dotted with traditional timber-frame houses, some of which were completely swept away. From the bridge that overlooks the town, nothing but a ghostly outline of the foundations of several buildings can be seen.
Merkel walked stone-faced through the destruction hand-in-hand with Malu Dreyer, the state’s premier.
As she toured last week’s detritus, other areas were battling new floods. On Saturday night, areas of Bavaria were declared a disaster zone as the southern state on the border with Austria was hit by flash floods. At least one person died in the Berchtesgadener district.
