More than 40 people have died as a result of freak flooding in southwest Germany and Belgium, officials have said.
German authorities confirmed that 18 people had died in Ahrweiler county in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, with the region of North Rhine-Westphalia also severely affected.
On a visit to Washington, Angela Merkel expressed her sorrow at the “disaster” taking place in her country. She said “heavy rain and flooding doesn’t capture what happened”.
“I grieve for those who have lost their lives in this disaster. We still don’t know the number. But it will be many,” the chancellor added.
The deaths came after relentless rains engorged rivers, breaking their banks and flooding homes across several states on Wednesday.
Six houses collapsed in Rhineland-Palatinate in the most serious single incident, where scores of people remain missing.
And about 25 more houses are at risk of collapsing in the worst-affected district of Schuld bei Adenau in the hilly Eifel region, local broadcaster SWR said, citing police.
The floods have been described as a once-in-25-years event, and have already seen two firemen drown and the army sent in for emergency evacuation of stranded residents.
The deluge of rain has disrupted rail, road and river transport in Germany’s most populous region.
Hagen city in North Rhine-Westphalia declared a state of emergency after the Volme river breached its bank.
The crisis team of the city issued an alert warning that the waters would reach levels seen just four times a century in the coming hours, urging those who lived in homes near the river to move to higher ground with immediate effect, public broadcaster WDR reported.
TV images and news photographs from the scene showed dozens of cars floating in the flooded city and a powerful stream of water gushing through the streets.
The German weather service issue an extreme weather warning on Wednesday for three western states and heavy rainstorms are expected to continue through southwestern Germany on Thursday. A continuous downpour is expected until Friday evening.
“We see this kind of situation only in winter ordinarily,” Bernd Mehlig, an environment official from North Rhine-Westphalia, the most affected region, told WDR. "Something like this, with this intensity, is completely unusual in summer."
Some parts of Hagen have become inaccessible and are isolated due to the high waters. Residents of Dusseldorf, a major business centre, were also asked to evacuate.
Two men, aged 77 and 82, died in their basements after they were flooded in the western cities of Kamen and Wuppertal, the police said.
A dam is threatening to burst in North Rhine-Westphalia as water levels swelled and authorities sounded the alarm to residents whose homes could be affected.
A threat is also emerging from another dam in several villages below the Steinbachtal reservoir and Rhine-Sieg county south of Cologne, where evacuations have been ordered.
One of the firemen died after he lost his foothold in the floodwaters and got swept away. A care home in Hagen had to be evacuated, while cellars and some hospitals saw flooding.
Landslides have been reported in some places, disrupting relief work, and major highways lie inundated. In the south and east of the country, many railway services were stopped.
Neighbouring Belgium has also been battered by heavy rains, causing flash floods in which at least six people have died. In Liege, there are fears the Meuse river could break its banks, with the mayor urging residents to evacuate the city.
Elsewhere, the Netherlands government rushed some 70 troops to the southern province of Limburg late on Wednesday to carry out evacuation work and use sandbags to plug the banks of a river that was on the brink of bursting.
At least eleven areas of France are under orange alert for floods as of Thursday, as the unusual storm dumped heavy rains at the start of the summer season, reported The Local. The equivalent of two months of rain has already fallen on some areas in the last one or two days, according to the French national weather service.
And in Luxembourg, torrential rains led to flash floods in several areas of the country. About 100 road sections are now blocked and the Alzette river has burst its banks. Emergency services had responded to 1,200 calls related to the floods as of Thursday morning, reported the Luxembourg Times.
Additional reporting by agencies
