The death toll from the devastating floods climbed to 169 deaths in Germany, emergency services said Tuesday, July 20, bringing the total number of deaths in the bad weather to at least 200 in western Europe.
Read also: Floods: Wallonia is living a hell underwater
In the only German regional state of Rhineland-Palatinate, they caused the death of 121 people, against 117 in the previous record, according to Aaron Klein, spokesperson for technical rescue teams.
Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday defended Germany's warning system as it faced flooding "
beyond imagination
", as the disaster toll grew further to 169 dead in Germany and 200 in Europe.
In Belgium, where a day of national mourning was held on Tuesday, 31 people died.
"
These are floods that are beyond imagination, when we see their effects on the spot,
" said the Chancellor, who came to see the extent of the damage in the small medieval town of Bad Münstereifel, in North Rhine-Westphalia, one of the Lands most affected by the floods of the last week.
The German warning system in question
"
There were alerts
", she assured, while the national system has been questioned for several days for having partly failed to warn the populations concerned in time of the seriousness of the floods in the west of the region. country.
The German meteorological service and the Federal Office for Population and Disaster Prevention have issued warnings.
They were then passed on to the districts, she explained.
The latter “
then do what they can, but of course it is not easy to have an idea when, as the mayor (of Bad Münstereifel) says, you have not had such a flood for 700 years.
She continued. "
We have a very good warning system
", she insisted, causing a few whistles from the inhabitants who had come to listen to her in a street in the historic center of the city, covered with mud.
The president of the German civil protection Armin Schuster, particularly targeted by the critics, had affirmed that his institution had sent some 150 alerts via the applications, as well as to the media.
But the floods had led to massive power cuts and knocked down telecommunications antennas, preventing residents from receiving alerts on time.
Traditional sirens, the solution?
Like Mr. Schuster, the Chancellor advocated the use of sirens as an additional alert tool.
“
Maybe the good old mermaid is more useful than we thought,
” she said.
A national test of this system inherited from the Cold War had turned into a fiasco last year, some sirens not having been triggered for technical reasons.
Municipalities had also simply removed them, deeming them unnecessary.
Since then, the government launched a program in the spring of 90 million euros to rebuild the network.
A new test is scheduled for next year.
