Berlin: German officials defend their actions ahead of severe flooding last week which surprised many cities and killed 196 people in Western Europe, but they acknowledge that more lessons can be learned from disasters.
When flooding receded Monday, the authorities continued to look for more victims and intensify their efforts to clean up the plots in West Germany, East Belgium and the Netherlands.
So far, 117 people have been confirmed to have died in the worst affected Germany, Rhineland-Palatinate, while 47 was killed in the neighboring state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and at least one in Bavaria, parts that saw heavy rain and floods during the weekend , The death toll in Belgium was 31.
Authorities said they tended to find more victims among the destroyed houses.
Weather officials have expected rain which causes even small rivers to swell rapidly, but warnings from potentially disaster damage do not seem to get to many people in affected areas, often in the middle of the night.
Federal and state authorities faced criticism from several opposition politicians for disaster, which came as a national election loom in September.
But the Minister of Home Affairs Horst Seehofer rejected the suggestion that federal officials had made mistakes and said the warning was given to local authorities “which made decisions about disaster protection.” “I have to say that some of the things I heard now are cheap selection rhetoric,” Seehofer while visiting Steinbach reservoir in West Germany, where the authorities say they are no longer afraid of the dam.
“Now it’s really not the time for this.” Seehofer underlined the message during a Monday visit to Bad Neuenahr, in the worst area, but said the authorities had to draw lessons after the aid phase immediately ended.
“Wherever we can improve anything in the alarm, in equipment, we have to do it,” he said.
“We owe to familiar families, and above all victims.” The head of the German Civil Protection Agency said the weather service has a “relative good forecast” and that the country is ready to flood its main rivers.
But, Armin Schuster told ZDF television Sunday night, “half an hour earlier, it was often impossible to say what a place to be hit with the quantity of” water.
He said 150 warning notifications had been sent through the application and the media.
He said, “We must investigate” where the sirens are heard and where they don’t do it.
Officials in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate Germany said they were ready for flooding, and the municipality was warned and acted.
But the Minister of Home Affairs, Roger Lewentz, said that after visiting the hard Schuld village with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday that “we, of course, have a problem that technical infrastructure, electricity and so on, were destroyed in once.
” Local Authority” Trying very quickly to react, “he said.” But this is a water explosion at times.
You can have the best warning preparation and situation (but) if warning equipment is destroyed and carried by the building, then it is a very difficult situation.
“Mobile network was also eliminated with floods.
The broader question about the German emergency warning system has emerged after the national test in September 2020, the first in 30 years, mostly failed.
Sirens were not heard in many places, or had been removed after the end of the Cold War , and push alert from the national warning application arrived late or not all.
Schuster, head of the Civil Protection Agency, noted that a program to reform civil protection was launched earlier this year, including the urge to encourage local authorities to install more sirens.
Germany does not have a system Text messages for disaster warnings, but Schuster told Deutschl and Funk Radio was exploring the possibility.
As a local community to face a major task of rebuilding homes and destroyed infrastructure such as bridges and water systems, Merkel Cabinet will compile a direct and medium financial assistance package Wednesday.
In Reservoir Steinbach, North Rhine-Westphalia Governor Armin Laschet said the dam was designed for risks that might occur once in 10,000 years.
“It’s exceeded in the past few days,” he said.
“That’s the possibility that no one predicts.”