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Flooded street in Schmitten, Hesse
Photo: Jan Eifert / dpa
Heavy rains and storms caused considerable damage in Germany on Friday evening.
Parts of North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse were affected.
In Hesse streets were flooded and basements filled up, said a spokesman for the fire department control center of the Hochtaunus district in the evening.
About 80 percent of the 65 or so missions would have been in the Neu-Anspach area.
Around 120 firefighters were in action.
North Rhine-Westphalia was also affected.
There have been around 430 missions in the city of Hennef, said a spokesman for the fire brigade control center of the Rhein-Sieg district.
Numerous cellars have overflowed and slopes have slipped.
There is a "massive" fire brigade in action.
Initially, no injuries were known.
In Cologne there were more than 500 missions because of the storm, according to the fire brigade, especially in the north of the city.
Among other things, a roof structure burned after a lightning strike.
The fire could be brought under control.
There were no injuries.
Many missions in the region were supposed to last overnight.
Lightning strikes the street - child hit and seriously injured
In Düsseldorf, a child fell on his bike after a lightning strike and was hit by a car. The twelve-year-old girl was critically injured, as a fire department spokesman announced. Accordingly, lightning struck in the evening near the group of several cyclists on a street in the Urdenbacher Kämpe nature reserve. Nobody was hit.
The child fell and got onto the road, where it was hit by a car, a police spokesman said.
Contact with electricity from lightning struck nearby, which could also have caused injury.
Initial findings indicated that the child had been in contact with electricity from lightning that struck the ground nearby, according to the fire department.
The child's mother, who was also among the cyclists, was also hospitalized because of a shock.
Heavy rain tears down scaffolding - worker dies
Heavy rain also caused a serious accident on a tunnel construction site in Stuttgart on Friday.
According to the police, one worker was killed.
According to initial findings, the rain had made an underground brook swell in the afternoon.
The water washed away a scaffolding, tearing it over and taking several workers with it.
Emergency services were able to save a worker who had been carried away from the nearby Neckar.
The man was taken to a hospital, as were two other people who probably wanted to come to his aid.
mjm / dpa
