Berlin: German officials defend their preparation to flood against a raging torrent that surprised many people and killed more than 190 people in Western Europe, but they admitted that they needed to learn lessons from disasters.
Efforts to find more victims and clean up the chaos left by floods crossing Western German plots, East Belgium and the Netherlands continued on Monday to recede with flooding.
So far, 117 people have been confirmed to die in the worst-affected German region, Rhineland-Palatinate; 46 in the neighboring state of Rhine-Westphalia; And at least one in Bavaria, a part that saw heavy rain and floods over the weekend.
At least 31 people died in Belgium.
Encourage which causes usually a small river swelling at a broad speed in the middle of last week has been estimated, but the warning of potentially disaster damage seems to have appeared to find their way to many people on the ground – often in the middle of the night.
“As soon as we provide immediate assistance that stands at the front line now, we have to see if there are things that don’t go well, are there things wrong, and then they have to be corrected, ” Economy Minister Peter Altmaiier said to Bild newspaper.
“It’s not about pointing – it’s about improvement for the future.
“The Head of the German Civil Protection Agency said that the country’s weather service” predicted relatively good “and that the country was ready to flood its main rivers.
But, Armin Schuster told ZDF television at the end of the week, “Half an hour earlier, it is often impossible to say what a place will be hit with what amount” water.
He said that 150 warning notice has been sent through the application and the media.
He said He could not say where the siren was heard and where they did not – “we must investigate it.
“Officials in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate Germany said they were ready for flooding and the municipality had been warned and acted.
But the Minister of Home Affairs, Roger Lewentz, said that after visiting the village of Schuld, which was hit by the Chancellor of Angela Merkel on Sunday that “we certainly have a problem that the technical infrastructure – electricity and so on – destroyed at once.
” Local Authority” tries with Very fast to react, “he said.” But this is a water explosion at times.
…
You can have the best warning preparations and situations (but) if warning equipment is destroyed and brought with the building, then it is a very difficult situation.
” Mobile network is also eliminated by floods.
There are wider questions about the German emergency warning system after the national test last September, the first in 30 years, mostly failed.
Sirens are not heard in many places, or have been removed after the end of the Cold War, and push alerts 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 did not have a text message system for disaster warnings, but Schuster told Radio Deutschlandfunk was exploring the possibility.
As a local community reflect on the big task of rebuilding homes and destroyed infrastructure such as the water system, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet will compile a direct and medium financial assistance package on Wednesday.
Asked on Sundays whether there must be compulsory insurance for people living in high-risk areas, Merkel sounds skeptical, arguing that it can “go beyond the economic capacity of the company and individuals.
The Governor of Rhineland-Palatinate, Shame Dreheer, supports the idea Of course.
” Compulsory insurance can cause a very high premium and they are not affordable, “Merkel said.