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Other Post Accidents, disasters and other noteworthy incidents

I told my wife the same yesterday. Don't they have any plans showing endangered areas and rain monitoring with warning thresholds? Now they hide behind "climate change"...

I also saw some offers on social media from people owning construction companies to come to aide with heavy equipment.
 
Unfortunately we do not have any Helmut Schmidt types anymore. Only procrastinators. Sitting out everything and incapable of quick decision making and taking responsibility.

This goes down through many instances.
 
You know what the saddest irony is in all of this? Bad Neuenahr Ahrweiler is the seat of the Federal Academy for Disaster relief/preparedness.
Formerly known as Akademie für Krisenmanagement, Notfallplanung und Zivilschutz renamed Bundesakademie für Bevölkerungsschutz und Zivile Verteidigung.
 
It seems that the entire Rhine basin is now affected. The district of Lörrach at the Swiss border declared emergency status last night when torrential rainfall caused flashfloods and mudslides. :(
 
Fish&Chips said:
It seems that the entire Rhine basin is now affected. The district of Lörrach at the Swiss border declared emergency status last night when torrential rainfall caused flashfloods and mudslides. :(
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at least your leader is at the White House - gave up watching the coverage this morning in the UK as all they banged on about was climate change
 
BCNTM said:
at least your leader is at the White House - gave up watching the coverage this morning in the UK as all they banged on about was climate change
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Actually it was only a day trip and her last official visit to the POTUS at that. Anyhow, nothing of note was achieved during that visit.
 
Boroughs of Venlo, a city of 100,000 in the Netherlands, are being evacuated as the Meuse is about to collapse its dikes. Evacuations are also underway in Liege (Belgium) and Juliers (Germany); the Rurtalsperre Dam has burst open.

Some 25,000 people are still trapped either inside their homes or in cut-off municipalities and need to be supplied with essentials by boat or helicopter. 200,000 people are without electricity.

At this point, 123 deaths have been confirmed, 20 of which in Belgium, and 1,320 people are still missing, also 20 of which in Belgium.
 
Are there any disaster information services available to affected people on radio?
We had problems with mobile phones networks for couple of weeks.
 
I’ve heard of help and aid from Frankreich and Great Britain, BoJo was deeply saddened by the devastation and offered help likewise the aforementioned French rescue and firefighters people.

It’s logical that when such a disaster occur in a particular country we offer help to our fellow Euro brethren.
 
The cellular network has broken down; even basic services, like wastewater disposal and gas for heating, have failed in Ahrweiler, an adjacent county to its north and parts of Belgium. The devastation is so profound that experts say it could take up to a year before the affected areas are inhabitable (at least by modern standards) again.

The armed forces have been mobilised, and the federal police has also sent two dozen helicopters to keep the affected areas supplied. They need to clear a path up the Ahr valley first before anything can be restored. The death toll now stands at 143 in Germany and 27 in Belgium. Sadly, more than 1,000 people are still missing. Time is running out.

The situation is particularly grim in that many people are believed to have defied evacuation orders, a fact that is feared to have contributed to the large number of people missing. In Blessem, of which I posted an aerial image yesterday, at least twelve people (mostly senior citizens) died after returning to their homes to keep an eye on them.
 
The whereabouts of 700 people missing in the Ahrtal Valley have become clear, but more than 300 people are still unaccounted for. Since contact with all the affected communities has been established, the authorities fear the worst. 188 dead have been confirmed at this point. The regions of Upper Bavaria and both Austrias now report heavy flooding, too. The Austrian government has mobilised the armed forces.

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This is quite sweet: The city hall of Tel Aviv illuminated in the German tricolour as a sign of solidarity.

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In other news, at long last a discussion has emerged in Germany as to why no preparations were made in the affected areas even though the Metereological Office had accurately predicted catastrophic rainfalls as many as four days before the event.
 
muck said:
This is quite sweet: The city hall of Tel Aviv illuminated in the German tricolour as a sign of solidarity.

View attachment 323455

In other news, at long last a discussion has emerged in Germany as to why no preparations were made in the affected areas even though the Metereological Office had accurately predicted catastrophic rainfalls as many as four days before the event.
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Seem unable to predict the weather from one day to the next - we have just had 3 days of 30 degrees wall-to-wall sunshine - can't get anything done it's too hot
 
I don't know, man… I'm not a big government type of guy, but I don't think it's the government's job to look at a concerning forecast and be like 'things are never as bad as they seem'.
 
muck said:
I don't know, man… I'm not a big government type of guy, but I don't think it's the government's job to look at a concerning forecast and be like 'things are never as bad as they seem'.
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Same as UK - flood defence and dredging has been cut back - you end up with floods

You let developers build houses on a flood plain and then complain when the houses flood
 
I don't know about Germany, but US weather reporters have been getting more and more hyperbolic in their descriptions of weather events in their daily reporting. Making mountains out of molehills so much that people listening get jaded.

"Freeze warning!", "Breeze Warning", "High winds! Torrential Rains and Wind! Take Immediate Shelter!"

Then, most of the time the weather is barely blustery and people get complacent about what is being said.
 
Euroamerican said:
I don't know about Germany, but US weather reporters have been getting more and more hyperbolic in their descriptions of weather events in their daily reporting. Making mountains out of molehills so much that people listening get jaded.

"Freeze warning!", "Breeze Warning", "High winds! Torrential Rains and Wind! Take Immediate Shelter!"

Then, most of the time the weather is barely blustery and people get complacent about what is being said.
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Well, as mentioned before; Germans can indeed be complacent when it comes to weather-related risks. But the national weather service's warnings are generally taken seriously, even if the populace doesn't always respond appropriately due to a lack of experience. Natural disasters with great loss of life are just not common in these parts. It's the authorities' insufficient response which deserves scrutiny.

Civil defence is a largely regional matter around here, and it's up to the local authorities to make preparations in response to a weather warning. In this instance, all the authorities seemingly did was to instruct residents to seek shelter and call the fire brigade should their basements be flooded. There's clear evidence of a dramatic error of judgement.

And since we're in an election year, public debate about the issue struggles to get going. The government would rather talk about climate change to avoid shining a light on its failures, and ironically the main opposition party is happy to oblige. The Greens can't afford to suggest the disaster could've been mitigated, as that would soften the punch of their message: Vote for us, or the world is going to end.
 
Typhoon is intensifying over the northwestern Pacific Ocean as it begins to impact parts of Japan. The storm is expected to potentially lash Taiwan and parts of China by this weekend.
This comes after Typhoon Cempaka rapidly strengthened on approach to China's southeastern coastline Tuesday, making landfall about 150 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Hong Kong.
Cempaka is now over land, bringing a widespread 4 to 8 inches (100 to 200 millimeters) of total rainfall to parts of Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan provinces. Isolated locations could approach 20 inches (500 millimeters) through Friday.
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Holy hell, that amount of rainfall is scary.
 
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