The German newspaper Welt reported that the dam on the river Ruhr in the district of Heinsberg, in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the west of Germany, burst during the night, and that rescuers evacuated about 700 people.
The water level is stagnant this morning, but the situation is still tense, reports Welt.
According to police estimates, at least 133 people died in the floods that hit Germany in the previous days, and hundreds of them are listed as missing.
The death toll from the floods has risen to 150
Number of victims catastrophic floods in West Germany and Belgium has risen to more than 150, local authorities said, while emergency services continued to search for hundreds of missing persons, the Guardian reports.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that he was “stunned” by the devastation caused by the floods and promised support to the families of the victims, but also to the cities that suffered significant damage.
“It is important that we show solidarity with those who were taken away by the floods,” the German president said.
93 people were killed in the German province of Rhineland-Palatinate, the authorities of that province announced, and the number of victims in the neighboring North Rhine-Westphalia is 43.
Although the European Flood Warning Service issued warnings at the beginning of last week, experts are wondering why the number of victims is so high.
Hydrologist Hana Kok assessed for Politika that a “monumental systemic failure” had occurred.
Officials warned that the death toll could be even higher. About 1,300 people are still listed as missing, and additional efforts to find them are hampering the damage to telephone lines, reports the Guardian.
Apart from Germany and Belgium, great floods also affected the Netherlands and Switzerland.
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