Floods in Europe: the toll rises with 165 deaths in Germany and 31 deaths in Belgium

The balance sheet continues to grow heavier.

While heavy floods have hit several European countries hard, Germany and Belgium have just announced an increasingly significant human toll.

Striking images show houses ripped open, large crevasses in the roads and residents dumbfounded by the extent of the damage.

In Germany, bad weather claimed the lives of at least 165 people according to Monday's report.

A number still provisional while many people are still missing.

The region most affected by the bad weather is Rhineland-Palatinate, with 117 dead against 112 previously counted, "and there are 749 injured," Verena Scheuer, a spokeswoman for the Koblenz police, told AFP.

Significant damage in Germany, the flood warning system questioned

German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke on Sunday about the major damage caused by the floods. "The German language is struggling to find the words to describe the devastation caused," said the Chancellor. Traveling in the village of Schuld not far from Bonn, she described a "surrealist" devastation and pledged the support of the federal state. From Wednesday, emergency aid of at least 300 million euros will be presented by the government, before a vast reconstruction program of several billion euros.

One of Germany's most popular newspapers, Bild, pointed the finger at the likely failures of the flood warning system on Sunday.

It relays the testimony of Hannah Cloke, professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, who spoke about the system in the Sunday Times.

According to her, "the system had sounded the alarm on July 10 - four days before the start of the floods - and sent 'warnings to the German and Belgian governments'".

The expert says that “The fact that people did not evacuate or did not receive the warnings suggests that something went wrong.

It is for her a "monumental failure of the system".

Read also "We have nothing left": on the road to a Germany devastated by floods

Following this publication, Angela Merkel's government on Monday promised to improve the national disaster warning system questioned, according to AFP. In general, the warning systems for the population during torrential rains, which caused the deadly floods in the west of the country, “worked”, in particular via an application for mobile phones called “Nina”, a assured during a press point, a government spokesperson, Martina Fietz. “But the experiences we had during this disaster show that we need to do more and better,” she admitted.

Mainly involved: the German civil protection, accused of not having warned the populations concerned in flood-prone areas sufficiently quickly of the seriousness of the floods.

Its president, Armin Schuster, pleaded Monday on public radio for "the return of the good old sirens", not to rely solely on digital tools.

In Belgium, nearly 31 confirmed deaths with 127 people still missing

In Belgium, the floods have caused at least 31 deaths, including 19 people identified according to the latest report on Monday.

Many people are still wanted, 127 citizens to this day.

Research is continuing, in particular in one of the most affected regions in Belgium, the province of Liège.

Tuesday, July 20 has been designated as a national day of mourning in "a testimony of compassion towards the victims and their relatives" according to the Federal Public Service Interior.

A minute of silence will thus be held at 12:01 p.m.

Other countries in Europe have also been affected by the floods since last week, such as the Netherlands and Luxembourg which suffered significant material damage, or more recently, Poland which has seen several of these cities ravaged by the floods. waters this weekend.