![]() ![]() Mass tabloid Bild, which makes no secret of its distaste for the idea of a Green victory in September, warned against “politicising” the floods. The Green party’s candidate for chancellor, Annalena Baerbock, who has struggled to centre the national conversation around ecological issues after a strong start to her campaign, cut short her holiday to visit affected areas but declined to be accompanied by the press. “So I regret all the more the impression that arose from a conversational situation. “The fate of those affected, which we heard about in many conversations, is important to us,” he wrote. Laschet tweeted an apology on Saturday afternoon. The broadcaster WDR commented that every election campaign offered a few moments “in which the candidates show their true colours”, adding: “Today is such a moment.” Lars Klingbeil, the general secretary of the centre-left Social Democratic party (SPD), called Laschet’s behaviour “lacking in decency and appalling”. The Ruhr river in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, before and after the flooding The Ruhr river in Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, before and after the flooding. While visiting the devastated town of Erftstadt, where an eroded gravel quarry had swallowed cars, bits of road and entire buildings, Laschet was on Saturday caught sharing jokes with bystanders while the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, solemnly addressed the cameras. The conservative frontrunner to step into her shoes, Armin Laschet, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), on Thursday interrupted a party meeting to attend flood-hit areas in NRW, the populous western state he represents as premier. ![]() The floods have hit Germany two months before federal elections that will determine a successor to Merkel, who is stepping down after 16 years in office. ![]() “We will stand up to this force of nature, in the short term, but also in the medium and long term.” “Germany is a strong country,” Merkel said. Her finance minister, Social Democrat chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz, on Sunday promised at least €300m (£257m) to the victims of the natural disaster. She pledged quick financial aid to the region and vowed to return to Schuld in August. “The German language barely has words for the devastation that has been wrought here,” Merkel said during her joint visit with Malu Dreyer, the state premier.Įmergency water treatment plants set up after the flooding of the Ahr River, in Schuld. Germany’s main provider of public railway services, Deutsche Bahn, said the storms and floods had caused damage to over 80 of its stations and more than 600km of tracks.ĭuring her visit to the affected areas in western Germany, Merkel on Sunday described a “surreal, ghostly situation” in the village of Schuld in Rhineland-Palatinate state, where floods had ripped through buildings, washed away cars and trapped people in their homes. On Wednesday and Thursday, a near-stationary low-pressure weather system over parts of western Germany brought intense rainfall and floods, with 110 people killed in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, a further 45 in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and at least 27 in neighbouring Belgium. Intense rainfall last week claimed the lives of at least 184 people in western Europe. Rainfall in the catchment basin of the Kirnitzsch, Polenz, Sebnitz and Wesenitz tributaries exceeded 100 litres per sq metre over the course of 24 hours, authorities reported, leading the waters to break the rivers’ banks. ![]() Several towns in the hilly eastern German region of Saxon Switzerland, south-east of Dresden, were also cut off and train services to the Czech Republic disrupted. A damaged street in Kelchsau near Kitzbuehel, Austria. ![]()
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