Severe Flooding Kills 5, Traps Schoolchildren in Germany, Forces Evacuations Across Europe

Eric Chaney
Published: June 2,2016
Flooding has killed at least 5 people in Germany and prompted evacuations across Europe as slow-moving storm system dumped rain across the continent.

The system at times produced extremely intense and record-breaking rainfall. According to weather.com meteorologist Tom Moore, portions of northeast France (near the border with Belgium) received six full weeks of rain in just a 24-hour period during the multi-day event.

Germany

Police in Germany say they've found the body of a fifth victim after floods swept part of Bavaria. The police said in a statement that the body of a man was found Thursday at a property in the town of Simbach am Inn. Flooding forced helicopter rescues in the same town and trapped schoolchildren in a school in the nearby city of Triftern.

"About 250 school children are still in their classes," Walter Czech, mayor of Triftern bei Pfarrkirchen in the Rottal district, told broadcaster Bayerische Rundfunk. "Fortunately, the building is located on a mountain. But perhaps the children have to spend the night in the gym because the access roads are impassable."

 

(MORE: Here's What Caused the Deadly Flooding in Europe)

 

Triftern police told Bayerische Rundfunk that  several  people in the nearby village of Simbach were rescued by helicopters and evacuated to the Triftern police station.

 

According to Czech, the flooding situation had gotten dramatically worse on Wednesday, with the whole center of Triftern, a town of just over 5,000 people on the Austrian border, flooded by the Altbach river

"In the last week southern Germany has seen 400+ percent of its average rainfall," said weather.com meteorologist Jonathan Belles.

Train traffic between Saxon capital Dresden and the Czech Republic was briefly halted after a mudslide, the Local reports. And firefighters in Bremen and Hanover were kept busy pumping out flooded cellars overnight as heavy rain swept into low-lying parts of the cities – including the Bremen fire service's own underground gym.
At least 4 people are likely dead in another part of the country as a result of the same heavy rains. In Schwaebisch Gmuend, a firefighter and a man he was trying to rescue were sucked into a flooded underpass. Both men were presumed dead, though their bodies hadn't yet been recovered Monday, police said.
"As far as we can humanly judge, both are dead," a spokesman for the state interior ministry in Stuttgart told the Sydney Morning Herald.
"It appears that Schwaebisch Gmuend is in a valley, so that may have played a roll in that water may have pooled in the valley," said Belles.
(MORE: 35 Injured After Lightning Strikes Children's Soccer Match in Germany)
The body of a third victim was found in a flooded garage in Weissbach near the city of Heilbronn. And in Schorndorf, near Stuttgart, a train fatally struck a 13-year-old girl as she sheltered from the rain under a railway bridge Sunday evening.
A 12-year-old boy who was with her was unharmed, but is receiving psychiatric support after the incident, the Morning Herald reported.
In the small town of Braunsbach, two streams burst their banks, unleashing floodwaters that destroyed one house, damaged several others and left streets strewn with debris.
Much of Germany experienced heavy rainstorms over the weekend. The heavy downpours also affected the state of Bavaria in the southeast, causing severe damage to properties in the area of Mittelfranken, where Nuremberg is situated.
Several residents in the Bavarian town of Frankenhoehe described the scenes to the Morning Herald as "like after the war".
Martin Jonas, a meteorologist at the German Weather Service, told the paper the unusually slow movement of the rainstorms had led to the severe flooding.
"The unusual thing about yesterday was that we were in a situation of relatively low pressure," Jonas said. "For that reason, the intensive downpours stayed above the same areas for a relatively long time.

France

Major flooding caused by a slow-moving storm system in Europe prompted water rescues and evacuations in France Wednesday and caused the Seine River to overflow.
Authorities in the town of Nemours evacuated the town's center on Wednesday, and members of a canoe club were among those assisting in the rescues.
The Seine River overflowed its banks and Paris City Hall shut down roads along its shores from the Left Bank in the east to the Eiffel Tower neighborhood in the west. Water levels rose at least 14 feet higher than usual.
In the Pas-de-Calais region of far northern France, rescue workers evacuated some residents and ordered others to higher floors in their homes as rivers rose as much as 3 feet in some areas, local authorities said.
(MORE: Severe Flooding Kills at Least 4 in Germany)
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told the Associated Press that emergency workers have carried out more than 8,000 rescue operations from the Belgian border south to the Burgundy over the past two days. He urged people to exercise the "greatest caution."

A fireman crosses a flooded road with a person on his back following heavy rainfalls on May 31, 2016 in Meung-sur-Loire southern Orleans, France.
(GUILLAUME SOUVANT/AFP/Getty Images)

France has seen rain and storms now for several days. During a sudden storm Saturday, a lightning bolt struck a children's birthday party at a Paris park. Five of the 11 people hit remained hospitalized Tuesday.
All matches at the French Open were canceled Monday, the first all-day shutdown in 16 years. Matches got underway on Tuesday, but play was soon disrupted again by rain.
Canadian tourist Helene Gazaille, who was visiting Paris to celebrate her 50th birthday, was determined to have a good trip even if that meant stuffing plastic bags into her sneakers in the morning and using a hair dryer to dry them out at night.
Others like Tang Jiru, a 26-year-old Chinese groom-to-be, looked on the bright side of the gray weather. Posing for photos with his fiancee in the Trocadero's Warsaw fountains, across from the Eiffel Tower, he said he was pleased despite - or maybe even because of - the driving rain.
"The weather, it's like blue. Blue means romantic," he said, his white tie-tuxedo-and-waistcoat combo becoming increasingly wet as his 27-year-old bride-to-be, Liu Yuan Yuan, smiled in her rain-sodden wedding dress.
"Every time you take a photo, it's a sunny day. But it's a rainy day, (so) oh it's special!" said Tang, who is getting married in September in Shanghai but had flown to Paris for the express purpose of taking romantic photos.

Belgium

Belgium endured a fourth day of heavy rain on Thursday, with flooding reported in several areas across the country.
After widespread flooding hit northern Antwerp and the west of Flanders early in the week, waters kept rising in eastern areas around Limburg and Liege. Several neighborhoods have had to be evacuated as cellars flooded and streets were submerged in overflowing creeks and rivers.
One major train line linking eastern Limburg to the capital had to be temporarily suspended early Thursday. No deaths or injuries have been reported so far in Belgium. More rain is expected later.