Rain without end in the flood areas

Storm - Rain without end in the flood areas

It's raining and raining, and the risk of dyke breaches is growing with each passing day. The continuous rain is now expected to continue in parts of Germany until Saturday. Originally, the German Weather Service (DWD) had issued its warnings until Thursday night. They were extended on Wednesday. This means that the situation in the flood areas is likely to worsen once again. The effects of the rainfall were already measurable on Wednesday: Some rivers were carrying even more water. An overview:

Lower Saxony, the south of Saxony-Anhalt and the north of Thuringia reported flooding over large areas. It is difficult to estimate the total size of the flooded area. The authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia spoke of rising water levels due to the continuous rain.

Other federal states are now also looking with concern at their rivers, which had recently been spared flooding. In Hesse, the authorities were expecting rising water levels in the Fulda and Lahn and their tributaries. The state office responsible also expected water levels to rise on the larger rivers Rhine, Main and Neckar. In Saarland, there were many fire department interventions due to too much water.

100,000 helpers are deployed in Lower Saxony alone

Lower Saxony and Bremen have been struggling with flooding since before Christmas - the situation there is the worst. "We have a situation that could be summed up in three words over and over again in the last few days: critical, but stable," said Minister President Stephan Weil (SPD). He spoke of huge volumes of water. Especially in the catchment areas of the Hunte near Bremen and the Hase in Emsland, water levels had risen again, according to the State Agency for Water Management, Coastal Defence and Nature Conservation. Many gauges, such as the Leine and Oker, indicated the highest reporting level.

Lower Saxony is now also drawing on reserves of sandbags from other federal states. Apart from a small remainder, the state's own reserve of around 1.9 million sandbags stored since the start of the flood situation before Christmas has now been used, according to the responsible state agency for water management, coastal protection and nature conservation. However, the state has now received around 1.5 million more sandbags from other federal states.

More than 100,000 helpers were deployed throughout the state, said Minister President Weil. He appealed to companies to continue to release them from their actual work to deal with the flood situation. This appeal applies for the coming days and, if necessary, also for the next week.

How long will the dykes hold?

The dykes, most of which can withstand the masses of water, have prevented worse. The question is, how much longer? "So far we haven't seen any dyke breaches, as the technical flood protection works well," said Torsten Schlurmann, head of the Ludwig Franzius Institute of Hydraulic, Estuarine and Coastal Engineering at Leibniz Universität Hannover. "The dykes provide sufficient protection against flooding as long as water does not accumulate on them over a long period of time."

The stability of a dyke then depends on many different factors - for example, how great the gradient is between the pressure from the water level in the river and the land side of the dyke, what material the dyke is made of and what subsoil it is standing on. An important task of the emergency services is therefore to constantly monitor the dykes, for example with dyke runners on the ground or with the help of drones from the air.

Scholz wants to get an idea of the situation

Several towns along the Helme river, which flows from Thuringia into the Kelbra reservoir, then through parts of the Mansfeld-Südharz district in southern Saxony-Anhalt and then back to Thuringia, are also threatened by the water masses. Bundeswehr soldiers were called in. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had announced that he wanted to take a look at the situation in Saxony-Anhalt. He has already been to Lower Saxony. A resident in Kelbra described the situation as somehow threatening.

The water levels also rose in the north - due to a storm surge from the Baltic Sea. However, there had been no major damage by Wednesday afternoon. In the UK, a driver was killed when a tree fell on his vehicle due to the storm. In the north of France, this caused flooding, local power outages, evacuations and the interruption of drinking water supplies.

Expert: Flood events likely to occur more frequently in future

Experts are calling for a rethink on flood protection as a consequence of the floods. "In the course of climate change, where flood processes will change, we will certainly see other types of floods in the future," said Ralf Merz, hydrologist at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Halle (Saale), on Deutschlandfunk radio. "Such long flood events will certainly occur more often in the future." A lot of damage could be avoided.

It is not yet possible to put a figure on the total amount of damage. SPD budget politicians brought up the idea of suspending the debt brake once again. "The floods are causing immense damage, especially in Lower Saxony," SPD member of parliament Andreas Schwarz told the magazine "Spiegel". "We could suspend the debt brake to cover these costs."