Iran Press/ Europe: As the waters recede, officials assess the destruction left by the torrents that terrorized swathes of western and southern Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands, smashing buildings and bridges.
In western Germany, a relief official dampened hopes on Wednesday for finding more survivors in the rubble of floods in Ahr Valley. Germany’s Ahr Valley is among the worst-hit areas.
“We are still looking for missing persons as we clear roads and pump water out of basements,” Sabine Lackner, deputy chief of the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW), told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland.
Any victims that are found now are likely to be dead, she said.
The floods are estimated to have caused more than 1 billion euros in insured losses.
The overall damage is expected to be much higher as only around 45% of homeowners in Germany have insurance that covers flood damage, according to figures from Germany’s insurance industry association GDV.
Germany has approved a €400 million package of immediate aid for victims of last week's floods and vowed to get started quickly on rebuilding the devastated areas.
The government also expects to spend billions on rebuilding, but how much exactly won't be clear until authorities have a better overview of the extent of the damage.
But Scholz said that reconstruction efforts would get underway without delay.
Germany has recent experience with major floods that hit swaths of the country's east in 2002 and 2013, causing extensive and costly damage.
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