The residents of Erfurt in Thuringia, where Martin Luther lived and studied, had never seen anything like it. The main street became a raging river washing away parked cars and anything else besides that emerged from flooded first floors.
The flooding in northwest Germany and Belgium as the gentle meandering Ahr River transformed into a torrent, overflowing its banks and devastating this wine producing region stunned Angela Merkel by the extent of damage in the towns and valleys. Close by in Schuld nearly half of the houses are completely destroyed, many simply disappeared, washed away, and the rest suffered serious damage.
West of Cologne, the Erft River submerged streets and houses in Blessem. The sides of a gravel pit gave way as it filled with water and parts of a castle and several houses collapsed into the huge hole. Southwest of Cologne in the Eifel region, the charming old-world tower of Ban Munstereifel was inundated and the charming pedestrian mall lined with centuries old buildings was ripped up by the waters.
The story was repeated in Liege, Belgium’s third largest city, as the Meuse River spilled over its banks and into the city turning the streets into rushing waters and carrying away cars, furniture and unfortunately, people. The river had risen by about 10 feet in one day. Almost all of Belgium was under flood alert as other rivers rose. By the time it was over at least 20 had died, many were missing and the prime minister had declared a day of mourning.
Across the channel, a fierce storm flooded West London and affected subway tunnels bringing transport to a stop. Again, roads turned into rivers as a month’s rain fell in one day. Affecting large portions of southern England, it flooded rail lines even in Southampton.
Earlier in the month, tropical storm Elsa flooded subways in parts of New York. Meanwhile, torrential rains have flooded subways in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, trapping passengers.
The rains have battered the Chinese province for almost a week. Home to more than 99 million, the region has suffered an estimated $190 million of damage. At least 33 people are feared dead, 12 in the Zhengzhou subway when it was flooded. Terrified survivors on Line 5 report water slowly rising up to their necks as they stood on the seats. Dams have burst, reservoirs have overflowed as have rivers, affecting almost a half billion people according to People’s Daily.
Catastrophic floods in Artvin Province in Turkey, this week repeat the story. Cars washed away down streets turned into torrents when the cities of Artvin and Arhavi were inundated. Also this week in India the monsoon season in Maharashtra has brought extremely heavy rains with flooding.
The terms being used for these floods are ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ or ‘once-in-a-thousand-year events. But the coincidence of so many of these across the globe begs the question of whether the climate crisis has altered the norm. Will another of these ‘thousand-year’ events hit us next year or decade? Time will tell. Our hearts go out to the people who are suffering… those who have lost loved ones and those who have lost what they owned and their peace of mind.