Shocking, Extreme German Floods Take Huge Toll

Flood chaos in Liege, Belgium. Photo by Bruno Fahy/Belga/
AFD via Getty Images

As you might have seen on the news, incredible floods have hit Germany and Belgium.

Like many disasters of late, this one is off the charts in terms of extremes. The death toll in Germany stood at at least 100 as of Saturday morning.  In neighboring Belgium, at least 12 people lost their lives to the flooding.  

The death toll is testimony to the suddenness, and extreme power of the flash floods. This was no local cloudburst. 

Germany, as you might well know, is a well-organized nation full of experts with an excellent meteorological bureau and emergency warning system. Still, dozens died

The flash flooding was made worse by the topography of the hardest hit region, which is much like Vermont's.

There are mountains, steep hills, with small streams feeding into creeks and rivers in narrow valleys. As in Vermont, the landscape in North Rhine Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, the hardest hit German regions is very pretty. 

But also like Vermont, the gorgeous mountains, steep hills, with cool clear small streams feeding into creeks and rivers in narrow valleys can turn deadly if there are extreme rains. Think Tropical Storm Irene back in 2011.

The rains in Germany were brutal.  More than seven inches of rain fell in two days in some areas. Normally, it takes a couple months for that much rain to fall in the worst-hit areas.

Up to 1,300 were reported still missing as of Friday morning, but many of those could be people who survived in fairly remote areas where the disaster took down mobile and transmission lines, so they can't be reached. 

Of course, climate change was almost immediately brought into the conversation. According to NPR:

"In response to news footage showing the massive destruction and desperate families perched on rooftops waiting to be rescued on Friday, Environmental Minister Svenja Schulze said that 'Climate change has arrived in Germany.'

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed shock over the flooding and said that action needed to be taken to prevent future catastrophes. 'Only if we take up the fight against climate change decisively, we will be able to prevent extreme weather conditions such as those we are experiencing."

Of course, floods have always occurred in this area of Germany and Belgium.  Maybe the same weather pattern would have developed with devastating floods without the aid of climate change.  

Climate change, though, loads the dice, making heavy rain storms like this more likely and intensifying the rainfall rates in storms that do occur.  I can't draw a straight line between climate change and this European disaster, but the fingerprints of that climate change seem to be all over this one.

Some videos.  Before each one, I'll include the URL because I can't get blogger to display the videos on many mobile devices

First one: URL on this hyperlink then displayed 

If anything, the extreme destruction in this ABC News report are even more stunning:

In one Belgian town, a fire broke out amid the floodwaters, worsening the destruction.

 

A street in Belgium is turned into a river: