Berlin: German cabinet on Wednesday approved the immediate assistance package of 400 million euros ($ 472 million) for flood victims and vowed to begin rapidly to rebuild the destroyed areas, the tasks that the cost became billions.
Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said the package was financed by the Federal Government Chancellor Angela Merkel and half by the Government of Germany, to help people deal with immediately after the flood last week would increase if more money needed.
“We will do what is needed to help everyone as fast as possible,” Scholz said.
At least 171 people were killed in Germany, more than half in Ahrweiler County, near Bonn.
When small rivers swell quickly into a torrent that went berserk on Wednesday and Thursday following persistent rain.
31 others died in Belgian neighboring countries, bringing the death toll in both countries to 202.
Deluges also destroyed or damaged homes, businesses and infrastructure.
Authorities in affected countries are responsible for the details of who accepts how much help and how, but Scholz said they have indicated it will be a “very non-affixing process” that involves no testing means.
“Need to send messages quickly that there is a future, that we take care of him together, that this is a problem for us as the whole country to help,” he added.
Heiko Lemke said his family was not insured because of the damage caused when the AHR River flooded the entire ground floor of their duplex house in the city of Sinzig.
So far no one tells Lemkes where to submit government assistance.
“And now I really don’t have time to look for it,” said the 47-year-old people were tired, as a maid carrying muddy debris from home.
Germany has recent experience with a large flood that hit the country, especially east, in 2002 and 2013.
They cause extensive and expensive damage.
However, the death toll was very high in the flood last week, which was the worst in the memory of life in the area they were hit.
Scholz said government assistance to rebuild after the 2013 flood has reached around 6 billion euros ($ 7 billion) so far and more help may be needed this time.
“There is nothing we need to delay,” he told reporters in Berlin.
“The oath we want to give now is that this assistance with rebuilding can begin directly, so that everything needed can be done to restore infrastructure, damaged houses, damaged schools, hospitals, sequentially there.” Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said he hoped for rude assessment of damage at the end of the month, after federal officials and the Governor of the State will meet to discuss the way ahead.
He and Scholz indicate that people can expect the help of reconstruction whether they are insured because of the “basic damage” of events such as floods, which are not much in Germany, although insurance is likely to be taken into account in determining the details.
Merkel has stated skeptics about making compulsory insurance, on the grounds that it can produce unreachable premiums, but some other German officials recommend it.
Seehofer said there must be “extensive debate about the protection system” for the future given that natural disasters tend to become more frequent and more destructive.
Scholz agreed, added: “In the case of what happens now, we must help.
I argue against sarcastically and heartless.
This is a big disaster, we must help and it must be the first priority, not all principles.” Head of an organization Representing the German insurance company said expecting insured damage in a total of 4 billion to 5 billion euros ($ 4.7 to 5.9 billion) in two German countries suffered worst damage.
The possibility of exceeding the damage of 4.65 billion euros caused by flooding in 2002 which soaked Dresden and other East German regions, said German insurance insurance chief Joerg Asmussen.
That, he added, made what happened last week “One of the most awesome storms in the past.” Last week’s flood also hit the South Dolint in Limburg Province, although there were no casualties there.
The Mayor of Valkenburg, Daan Prevoo, said that around 700 houses in the city were very damaged so the owners had to find temporary accommodations when they were repaired.
He estimated the cost of damage to homes and businesses in Valkenburg to around 400 million euros ($ 472 million).