Over a hundred people have been killed in Germany and Belgium floods as the search continued for hundreds of people that are missing.
Gatekeepers News reports that 93 people were confirmed dead in Germany after the rainfall in Northwestern Europe made rivers burst their banks, destroying the region.
Authorities warned that the death toll could rise further in the States of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia which are the worst hit.
About 1,300 people were still reported missing in the western German district of Ahrweiler, though officials said efforts to contact them could be hindered by disrupted roads and phone connections.
Belgium on Friday reported at least 12 dead, noting that 5 people are still missing.
Gatekeepers News gathered that the village of Schuld (population 700) in Germany was almost destroyed.
In the town of Erfstadt-Blessem, near Cologne, floodwaters made a row of houses collapse.
Local authorities said they were receiving emergency calls from people trapped by floodwater but rescue was in many cases not possible.
About 15,000 police, soldiers and emergency service workers have been deployed in Germany to help with the search and rescue, while helicopters picked stranded residents from rooftops and tanks cleared roads of fallen trees and debris.
“There are people dead, there are people missing, there are many who are still in danger,” the governor of Rhineland-Palatinate state, Malu Dreyer, told the regional parliament.
“We have never seen such a disaster. It’s really devastating.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, on a visit to Washington, DC, expressed her shock at the extent of the flooding, saying “I grieve for those who have lost their lives in this disaster”.
She also noted that the number of dead was expected to rise further.
“We still don’t know the number. But it will be many.”
Merkel, while speaking at the White House, said the day was “characterised by fear, by despair, by suffering, and hundreds of thousands of people all of a sudden were faced with catastrophe.”
“My heart goes out to all of those who in this catastrophe lost their loved ones, or who are still worrying about the fate of people still missing,” she added.
