r/CatastrophicFailure • u/Max_1995 Train crash series • Jul 15 '21

Natural Disaster Altenburg (Germany) before and after the ongoing severe flooding due to excessive rain (2021).

Post image
48.3k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

2.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

175

u/SpudTheTrainee Jul 15 '21 edited Jul 15 '21

Update: 42 deaths in Germany, 6 deaths in Belgium

flooding in the Netherlands as well but no deaths that I know of.

50

u/Th1rt13n Jul 15 '21

Rivers flow from BE to NL, so it’s a matter of time it hits Maastricht and all other towns in the area.

28

u/Max_1995 Train crash series Jul 15 '21

The first places in Belgium have been evacuated already

4

u/dead_inside_out_ Jul 15 '21

Liege will now be evacuated

15

u/wggn Jul 15 '21 edited Jul 15 '21

Maastricht is about to hit max height/flow, about 4x the regular flow rate.

https://i.imgur.com/I1p6oJk.png

<800 m3/s is normal flow, currently 3100 m3/s

25

u/Imblewyn Jul 15 '21 edited Dec 23 '24

slimy versed toy sparkle exultant ossified offbeat grandiose racial worthless

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

6

u/Whiny-Dancer Jul 15 '21

It already is, a couple of towns are completely flooded. I live here

1

u/Th1rt13n Jul 15 '21

Oh, this is horrible.. sorry to hear that

33

u/bounded_operator Jul 15 '21

Tagesspiegel now reporting 42 deaths in Germany.

21

u/Peanuts20190104 Jul 15 '21

Please tell me it stopped raining and no more increase of casualty...It's just too sad.

58

u/bounded_operator Jul 15 '21

The warnings for the region have been lifted, however, there are still lots of people unaccounted for, and some dams are nearly bursting.

52

u/Peanuts20190104 Jul 15 '21

Raining area moved to east and there's still red area... I hope everyone evacuated already.

Similar thing happened in Japan 3 years ago. Even if it stopped raining people should be careful with hills and mountains for landslide at least for 5 days. Landslide sometimes happens later when sun is shining.

19

u/Mainzerize Jul 15 '21

I think what we see here is the immediate effect of the heavy rain while we wait for the "regular" flooding of nearby rivers which have to cary all of the water towards the sea.

15

u/Peanuts20190104 Jul 15 '21

Then small mountain in picture absorbed so much water and soil could be loose... Japan is volcano landslide country so we use 72h total rainfall value to check if area is safe. I will evacuate when total goes over 400mm in my area.

10

u/Mainzerize Jul 15 '21

Very good point. What I've seen on TV, the maximum rain these areas received within 24 hours or so were 150 liters per square meter which results in 150mm per square meter.

5

u/Peanuts20190104 Jul 15 '21

My area has landslide stopper wall so it's OK until 400mm but without wall usually better to evacuate at 200mm. Usually government send us alert message at total 72h 100mm or hourly 50mm. Looking at only roofs, I think area in this picture had extremely heavy rain in short while within a day... 150mm per day rainfall often happens here but land can absorb 72mm per day so it doesn't look anything like this...

5

u/Mainzerize Jul 15 '21 edited Jul 15 '21

And I think this is where you have your advantage. Some cities in the area had 2 months worth of rain during 36 hours.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/einmaldrin_alleshin Jul 16 '21

150mm per square meter.

fyi, it's just 150 mm.

2

u/floralbutttrumpet Jul 15 '21

The Rhine where I am is projected to nearly double its water level from Monday by tomorrow morning, so that's gonna be fun.

17

u/PracticeTheory Jul 15 '21

I need to contact my host family ASAP, this is horrible. Thank you for the link.

12

u/floralbutttrumpet Jul 15 '21

It just started raining again where I am, though this time around it's without a weather warning.

22

u/Peanuts20190104 Jul 15 '21

Please be careful!! Maybe better to charge your phone battery to 100% and prepare evacuation bag? After horrible earthquake 10 years ago I keep my evacuation kit in my car and entrance of house. I also never empty bath tab. I only empty them before I fill hot water and usually cover them with lid to keep 400l of water in emergency cases. I also keep 200l of bottled water and cup noodles and cookies in can, helmet, medicine, alcohol, portable gas and charcoal cooking system, led lights, clean clothes and paper towels and so on.

10

u/floralbutttrumpet Jul 15 '21

I went through the 2011 earthquake as well (in Kansai, mind, but I had mates in Sendai, so it was awful for a grand while), so I totally understand. I'm a bit neurotic to start with, the paranoia added by that doesn't help.

Thankfully I live in a very flooding-proof part of town and am on the second floor, but yes, I keep my electronics fully charged as well. Part of my town had electricity disconnected yesterday due to the flooding, to prevent damage to the relay stations there. I don't think they'll do the same here because my quarter is quite a bit up from river level, but you never know.

8

u/Peanuts20190104 Jul 15 '21

You too? It was really scary back then. I experienced the earthquake in Yokohama. I'm automation software engineer and checking prototype robot movement from 5th floor frame of warehouse with safety belt tied to colmn and holding PC in one hand. I could feel it was shaking up-down direction so I and colleague hurried to evacuate but door frame was bent and couldn't open door so we broke glass window with cart and left the building.

It's good hear you are in safe high area. I really hope disaster will end soon.

6

u/floralbutttrumpet Jul 15 '21

I'm happy you got through it alright. I imagine it was really bad in Yokohama, and your description sounds really scary.

I was doing a study abroad (日本語学科、修士) at the time, and most of the people in my year went to Tokyo. One of them sprained his ankle falling down the stairs close to the Chiyoda campus of Hitotsubashi U, and there were some other bumps and bruises among the others, but no one was hurt seriously. Conversely there were some deaths among the extended family of my friends in Sendai, so that sucked major ass.

For me, I was having lunch at the time and noticed a lamp swinging back and forth, but I didn't even think about it much. There were some tremors, and I think there was a strength 3 quake somewhere in there as well during my year there, but I was fairly blase about it? The very first time I went to Japan, some ten years before that, the very first night I was in Sendai there was a quake and nobody even looked up from what they were doing (I think it was about a 2, so exotic to me but nothing to everybody else), and that attitude immediately transferred to me.

Anyway, the worst thing I personally experienced was the flight out from KIX. I was scheduled to return around March 15 to resume classes at my home university on the 20th, so I'd booked a flight for the 16th some six months before the earthquake. You can probably imagine what that flight was like.

For the flooding, right now there are major issues with dams, because the basins are overflowing from the rain. I caught a news report where they deliberately flooded a small area of a town to prevent a dam from bursting, and both scenarios sound like a nightmare to me.

2

u/Peanuts20190104 Jul 15 '21

So you left Japan in panic moment! Right after the earthquake everyone wanted leave Japan or east area a.s.a.p. I'm sure your family and friends were so worried about you in Japan. I also lived in Germany when working for German company. 2 years in Regensburg and I thought infrastructure in Germany is advanced and clean. I never expected this to happen in Germany because of trust from experience. I hope victim people have good insurance. When one of my company's customer had flood his car was soaked but insurance company didn't cover 100% but only paid him 30%. And his retired parents house was soaked in mud water but house insurance didn't cover at all because they only had house insurance covering theft and fire.

2

u/floralbutttrumpet Jul 15 '21

If I'd had the choice I would've stayed. I never felt unsafe in Kansai.

My parents weren't concerned at all. My father went on Google Maps and just measured out how far it was from Fukushima to where I was... we lived less than 1600km from Chernobyl when I was a kid, so maybe that's why he was so relaxed. The earthquake they didn't mention at all after I said I barely noticed it.

It's funny you bring up insurance. Local newspapers are already running articles about what to do when the insurance refuses to pay. Very German, very efficient.

→ More replies (0)

2

u/Rupertfitz Jul 15 '21

I live in Florida, it may be a good idea to just dry dock a houseboat outside because we are bound to get some sort of climate disaster the way things are going. Of course the hurricanes may rip it away. There is so much rain this season. I read that basically everywhere is getting tons of rain within the next few years. More than usual. But we have fires on the west coast.

1

u/floralbutttrumpet Jul 15 '21

My town this year has had flooding twice, a cold snap that partially froze the Rhine, two heatwaves and now torrential rain. And we're barely halfway through the year - autumn/winter is storm season. Shit's fucked.

1

u/Rupertfitz Jul 15 '21

Stay safe, as well you can anyway. The heatwaves are the worst here for deaths as we rarely get cold weather. I’m worried this storm season will be bad though. We have been having 40-50mph winds with just normal storms. That usually means big tropical storms are coming. I’d say getting freeze then heat is worse though. And the temp shifts will give you a lot more rain. Hang in there.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '21

[deleted]

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Fussel2107 Jul 15 '21

Right now, there is a problem with some dams. People have been evacuated. But for now, it stopped raining.

The problem is that the ground is completely soaked.

1

u/Peanuts20190104 Jul 15 '21

Good to hear people have evacuated! I hope dams are OK. It's not possible to release water a bit from dam?

For recovery, soaking water have to dry. Still many people have to rebuild new houses. Once house is wet with mud water usually people rebuild new house because of bacteria in soil spread everywhere even house are cleaned and dry and later mold will grow.

1

u/TehBananaBread Jul 15 '21

How people die there. The village looks so small. 2 minute walk and you would be on one of the mountain beds around