Deadly flash flood in Bavaria: fire brigade describes dramatic scenes - "At a quarter past 9 the country was under"
Created: 05/08/2022, 07:16
By: Alexander Kraus
The water was up to eight meters high in an underpass near Saulgrub.
A driver was rescued from the floods.
Any rescue came too late for a Polish truck driver.
Saulgrub – Thursday evening around 9 p.m.: A thunderstorm unloads over the village of Saulgrub (Garmisch-Partenkirchen district).
The German Weather Service will later determine that more than 70 liters of rain per square meter are pouring down on the site.
That is too much for the underpass of the B 23, which was only built in 2016 as a bypass and runs east of the village.
Thunderstorm cell moves over Upper Bavaria: "At a quarter past 9 a.m. land was under"
The water accumulates in the depression surrounded by concrete walls - two cars and a small truck get stuck.
"At a quarter past 9 a.m. land was under," says the commander of the Saulgruber fire brigade, Georg Sporer junior.
The B 23 is flooded for more than 250 meters.
The fire brigade operation is overshadowed by accidents: a firefighter's car is hit by two falling trees on the way up, but the man remains uninjured.
By the way: everything from the region is also available in our regular GAP newsletter.
An emergency vehicle is also hit by flash floods.
Those who make it to the underpass save a woman almost at the last second.
"Her car was full, she was standing on the vehicle roof," reports Sporer.
She is pulled up with a ladder.
The lifeguards will soon have to call off the deployment of divers in the flooded section of the road - they have no visibility and the strong current is life-threatening.
Emergency services at the small truck: In this vehicle, a Polish driver could only be recovered dead - he drowned in the flash flood.
© Angela Warmuth/dpa
Flash flood in the Garmisch-Partenkichen region: the extent of the drama only became apparent the following day
The full extent of the drama only becomes visible on Friday.
The water is pumped out for hours - and then the roof of a small truck with Polish license plates becomes visible.
It was at the deepest point of the underpass, the water level here was up to eight meters.
When the lifeguard pulls up with a boat and smashes a window, they discover a lifeless person inside the car: the driver did not manage to save himself.
The circumstances couldn't be more terrible.
The man had probably called the Polish emergency services on his cell phone and asked for help.
This is reported by a police contact point in Brandenburg.
The Kripo Weilheim will now determine the further circumstances.
It is reported that the red light in front of the underpass was on at the time of the accident.
Deadly flash flood: Small truck driver trapped in the vehicle – he still called the emergency services
The Weilheim State Building Authority, which planned the underpass, is also faced with questions.
Are the pumps working properly?
Have there been problems with the sensors controlling the pumps?
Christoph Prause, head of department at the building authority, also agrees to check whether the system as a whole is "adequately dimensioned".
In any case, no one expected such a local extreme thunderstorm: In Bad Kohlgrub – just three kilometers from Saulgrub – there were only twelve liters of rain instead of 70.
(By Alexander Kraus)
You can find more current news from the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen at Merkur.de/Garmisch-Partenkirchen.