The deadly flooding in the western part of Germany that at least cost 19 people's lives shows the need to speed up climate protection measures, the conservative candidate to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday.
"We do not yet have an exact picture of how many victims there are in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. But we can assume that there are several dead, who were victims of this flood catastrophe," said Armin Laschet, who is the federal state's premier.
"We will be faced with such events over and over, and that means we need to speed up climate protection measures, on European, federal and global levels, because climate change isn't confined to one state."
(Reporting by Kirsti Knolle; Editing by Douglas Busvine)
