A rescue crew member lost his life after his rubber dinghy overturned amidst the ongoing floods in Pfaffenhofen, proximate to Munich, Germany. Germany is presently grappling with extensive flooding in the southern part due to heavy downpours which have obstructed rail movement and strained emergency services severely.
The calamitous event transpired on Sunday morning and involved three other rescuers who were accompanying the drowned fire fighter on the boat. Expressing his condolences over the unfortunate event, Chancellor Olaf Scholz took to X, previously known as Twitter, praising and extending his gratitude to the nation’s emergency service personnel.
Robert Habeck, the Economy Minister–doubling as the vice chancellor– mourned the “dreadful” incident and plans to tour the flood-stricken regions on Sunday. This unfolds in the wake of catastrophic floods unleashed by intense downpours in July 2021 which left several parts of Germany and adjacent nations ravaged. The destruction claimed over 240 lives in the area and above 170 solely in Germany, with the subsequent rehab and reconstruction amounting to billions of euros.
Presently, approximately half the country is under flood warnings including regions of Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Brandenburg, seeing heavy rainfall since Friday. Numerous areas in Bavaria have reached flood levels described as hundred-year phenomena by the country’s central flood management centre. For major trade route Danube River along with some of its tributaries, high to extreme water alert is still in force.
The Donaukurier newspaper has reported a possible situation in Schrobenhausen in Bavaria, north of Munich, where a woman is feared to be trapped in her basement, prompting dispatch of divers and a drone by rescue teams. Meanwhile, in Schwäbisch-Gmünd, Baden-Württemberg– close to Mercedes-Benz’s Stuttgart base– a landslide caused two coaches of the swift ICE train to derail. The 185 passengers were safely evacuated while a car driver survived being swept away by a 30-metre mudslide, as per SWR, the local broadcaster.
Deutsche Bahn AG, a leading train operator in Germany, has advised against journeying in regions impacted by flooding. The company suspended several transnational routes to Austria and Switzerland this past Saturday. Further, trips to Germany’s central hub, Berlin, and its economic centre, Frankfurt, were scrapped. Weather predictions from Deutscher Wetterdienst, the German meteorological service, indicate that weighty thunderstorms are anticipated across the southern and select eastern regions of the country. These weather disturbances are expected to commence from Sunday afternoon, persisting extensively through Monday, with mountainous areas being the worst affected.