Environment and nature
Town burns to ashes in raging Northern California wildfire
Eva Gorman says the little California mountain town of Greenville was a place of community and strong character, the kind of place where neighbors volunteered to move furniture, colorful baskets of flowers brightened Main Street, and writers, musicians, mechanics and chicken farmers mingled.
Now, it’s ashes.
As hot, bone-dry, gusty weather hit California, the state’s largest current wildfire raged through the Gold Rush-era Sierra Nevada community of about 1,000, incinerating much of the downtown that included wooden buildings more than a century old.
Read: Thousands flee homes outside Athens as heat fuels wildfires
The winds were expected to calm and change direction heading into the weekend but that good news came too late for Gorman.
“It’s just completely devastating. We’ve lost our home, my business, our whole downtown area is gone,” said Gorman, who heeded evacuation warnings and left town with her husband a week and-a-half ago as the Dixie Fire approached.
She managed to grab some photos off the wall, her favorite jewelry and important documents but couldn’t help but think of the family treasures left behind.
“My grandmother’s dining room chairs, my great-aunt’s bed from Italy. There is a photo I keep visualizing in my mind of my son when he was 2. He’s 37 now,” she said. “At first you think, ‘It’s OK, I have the negatives.’ And then you realize, ‘Oh. No. I don’t.’”
Officials had not yet assessed the number of destroyed buildings, but Plumas County Sheriff Todd Johns estimated on Thursday that “well over” 100 homes had burned in and near the town.
“My heart is crushed by what has occurred there,” said Johns, a lifelong Greenville resident.
About a two-hour drive south, officials said some 100 homes and other buildings burned in the fast-moving River Fire that broke out Wednesday near Colfax, a town of about 2,000. There was no containment and about 6,000 people were ordered to evacuate in Placer and Nevada counties, state fire officials said.
The three-week-old Dixie Fire was one of 100 active, large fires burning in 14 states, most in the West where historic drought has left lands parched and ripe for ignition.
Read: Western wildfires calm down in cool weather, but losses grow
The Dixie Fire had consumed about 565 square miles (1,464 square kilometers), an area larger than the size of Los Angeles. The cause was under investigation, but Pacific Gas & Electric has said it may have been sparked when a tree fell on one of the utility’s power lines.
The blaze exploded on Wednesday and Thursday through timber, grass and brush so dry that one fire official described it as “basically near combustion.” Dozens of homes had already burned before the flames made new runs.
No deaths or injuries were reported but the fire continued to threaten more than 10,000 homes.
On Thursday, the weather and towering smoke clouds produced by the fire’s intense, erratic winds kept firefighters struggling to put firefighters at shifting hot spots.
“It’s wreaking havoc. The winds are kind of changing direction on us every few hours,” said Capt. Sergio Arellano, a fire spokesman.
“We’re seeing truly frightening fire behavior,” said Chris Carlton, supervisor for Plumas National Forest. “We really are in uncharted territory.”
Heat waves and historic drought tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West. Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
The blaze hit Greenville from two angles and firefighters already were in the town trying to save it but first they had to risk their lives to save people who had refused to evacuate by loading people into cars to get them out, fire officials said.
Read:Wildfires blasting through West draw states to lend support
“We have firefighters that are getting guns pulled out on them, because people don’t want to evacuate,” said Jake Cagle, an incident management operations section chief.
The flames also reached the town of Chester, northwest of Greenville, but crews managed to protect homes and businesses there, with only minor damage to one or two structures, officials said.
The fire was not far from the town of Paradise, which was largely destroyed in a 2018 wildfire sparked by PG&E equipment that killed 85 people, making it the nation’s deadliest in at least a century.
Evacuations lifted as progress made against western fires
Firefighters in Oregon reported good progress in the battle against the nation’s largest wildfire, while authorities canceled evacuation orders near a major blaze in Northern California.
Containment of the Bootleg Fire in remote southern Oregon was up to 74% on Sunday. It was 56% contained a day earlier.
“That reflects several good days of work on the ground where crews have been able to reinforce and build additional containment lines,” fire spokesman Al Nash said Sunday.
Read:Western wildfires calm down in cool weather, but losses grow
The blaze has scorched over 646 square miles (1,673 square kilometers) since being sparked by lightning July 6 in the Fremont-Winema National Forest.
California’s Dixie Fire covered nearly 383 square miles (992 square kilometers) in mountains where 42 homes and other buildings have been destroyed.
The fire was 32% contained Sunday, and evacuation orders and warnings were lifted for several areas of Butte and Plumas counties.
The cause of the blaze, which ignited July 13, was still under investigation.
Authorities warned that with unpredictable winds and extremely dry fuels, the risk of flare-ups remained high.
In recent days, lightning sparked two wildfires that threatened remote homes in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Evacuation warnings remained in place Sunday for communities along the Trinity River.
In Montana, a wind-driven wildfire destroyed more than a dozen homes, outbuildings and other structures, authorities said Sunday. Evacuations were ordered after flames jumped a highway and moved toward communities near Flathead Lake in the northwestern part of the state.
Crews also battled major blazes in northeast Washington and northern Idaho.
Read: Wildfires blasting through West draw states to lend support
Nearly 22,000 firefighters and support personnel were battling 91 large, active wildfires covering 2,813 square miles (7,285 square kilometers) in mostly western states, the National Interagency Fire Center said.
A historic drought and recent heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West. Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
The U.S. Drought Monitor reported last week that while a robust monsoon has delivered drought-easing rainfall to the Southwest, critically dry conditions persist across Northern California and the Northwest, where there has been an expansion of “exceptional drought,” the worst category.
Dry conditions and powerful winds made for dangerous fire conditions in Hawaii. A wind advisory was issued Sunday for portions of Lanai, Maui and the Big Island.
A fast-moving wildfire on Hawaii’s Big Island grew to 62.5 square miles (100.58 square kilometers), prompting evacuation orders.
The wildfire prompted officials to ask about 2,500 residents living in Waikoloa Village to evacuate Sunday, a day after people living in two other communities were asked to evacuate.
“This isn’t the time to panic,” Fire Chief Kazuo Todd said during a televised briefing.
About 50 fire apparatus are being employed to fight the fire, and the National Guard has been called in to help, he said.
Read:Western wildfires: Crews make progress on huge Oregon blaze
“Due to the high wind and weather patterns that are going on through the area, the fire is continuing to break through our fire breaks,” Todd said.
Local media report at least one home has been destroyed. An evacuation center was being set up at the old Kona airport.
Residents say flood-hit German towns got little warning
Like other residents of his town in Germany, Wolfgang Huste knew a flood was coming. What nobody told him, he says, was how bad it would be.
The 66-year-old antiquarian bookseller from Ahrweiler said the first serious warning to evacuate or move to higher floors of buildings close to the Ahr River came through loudspeaker announcements around 8 p.m. on July 14. Huste then heard a short emergency siren blast and church bells ringing, followed by silence.
Read:Germany defends preparation for floods, considers lessons
“It was spooky, like in a horror film,” he said.
Huste rushed to rescue his car from an underground garage. By the time he parked it on the street, the water stood knee height. Five minutes later, safely indoors, he saw his vehicle floating down the street. He estimates the losses in his store, where books dating back to the early 1500s were destroyed, at more than 200,000 euros ($235,000).
“The warning time was far too short,” Huste said.
With the confirmed death toll from last week’s floods in Germany and neighboring countries passing 210, almost 150 people still missing and the economic cost expected to run into the billions, many have asked why the emergency systems designed to warn people of impending disaster didn’t work.
Sirens in some towns failed when the electricity was cut. In other locations, there were no sirens at all; volunteer firefighters had to knock on people’s doors to tell them what to do. The German weekly Der Spiegel reported that in one suburb of Wuppertal, north of Cologne, people were warned by a monk ringing a bell.
Huste acknowledged that few could have predicted the speed with which the water would rise and rip through towns. But he pointed across the valley to a building that houses Germany’s Federal Office for Civil Protection, where first responders from across the country train for possible disasters.
“In practice, as we just saw, it didn’t work, let’s say, as well as it should,” Huste said. “What the state should have done, it didn’t do. At least not until much later.”
German authorities did receive early warnings from the European Flood Awareness System. These made their way through official channels, putting firefighters on heightened alert as well as smartphone users who had installed disaster warning apps, but such apps aren’t widely used.
Local officials responsible for triggering disaster alarms in the Ahr valley on the first night of flooding have kept a low profile since the deluge. At least 132 people were killed in the Ahr valley alone.
Authorities in Germany’s Rhineland-Palatinate state took charge of the disaster response in the wake of the floods, but they declined to comment on what mistakes might have been made on the night the disaster struck.
Read:Merkel tours ‘surreal’ flood scene, vows aid, climate action
“People are looking at a life in ruins here. Some have lost relatives, there were many dead,” said Thomas Linnertz, the state official now coordinating the disaster response. “I can understand the anger very well. But on the other hand, I have to say again: This was an event that nobody could have predicted.”
The head of Germany’s federal disaster agency BKK, Armin Schuster, acknowledged to public broadcaster ARD that “things didn’t work as well as they could have.”
His agency is trying to determine how many sirens were removed after the end of the Cold War. Germany also plans to adopt a system known as ‘cell broadcast’ that can send alerts to all cellphones in a particular area.
In the town of Sinzig, Heiko Lemke recalled how firefighters came knocking on doors at 2 a.m., long after the floods had caused severe damage upriver in Ahrweiler.
Despite a heavy flood in 2016, nobody had expected the waters of the Ahr River to rise as high as they did in his community, Lemke said.
“They were evacuating people,” he said. “We were totally confused because we thought that wasn’t possible.”
Within 20 minutes, water had flooded the ground floor of his family’s house, but they decided it was too dangerous to venture out, he said.
“We wouldn’t have managed to make it around the corner,” said his wife, Daniela Lemke.
Twelve residents of a nearby assisted living facility for people with disabilities drowned in the flood. Police are probing whether staff at the facility could have done more to save the residents, but so far there is no suggestion that authorities could face a criminal investigation for failing to issue timely warnings.
Read:Europe flooding toll over 180 as rescuers dig deeper
Experts say such floods will become more frequent and severe due to climate change, and countries will need to adapt, including by revising calculations about future flood risks, improving warning systems and preparing people for similar disasters.
Now that he knows about the flood risk, Heiko Lemke hopes all those things will happen.
“But maybe it would be even better to leave,” he added.
Wildfires blasting through West draw states to lend support
Out-of-state crews headed to Montana Saturday to battle a blaze that injured five firefighters as the U.S. West struggled with a series of fires that have ravaged rural lands and destroyed homes.
Progress was being made on the nation’s largest blaze, the Bootleg Fire in Oregon, but less than half of it was contained, fire officials said. The growth of the sprawling fire had slowed, but increased fire activity was expected Saturday, and thousands of homes remained threatened on its eastern side, authorities said.
Read:Western wildfires: Crews make progress on huge Oregon blaze
“This fire is resistant to stopping at dozer lines,” Jim Hanson, fire behavior analyst, said Saturday in a news release from the Oregon Department of Forestry. “With the critically dry weather and fuels we are experiencing, firefighters are having to constantly reevaluate their control lines and look for contingency options.”
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday declared a state of emergency for four northern counties because of wildfires that he said were causing “conditions of extreme peril to the safety of persons and property.” The proclamation opens the way for more state support.
On Saturday, fire crews from California and Utah were headed to Montana, Gov. Greg Gianforte announced. Five firefighters were injured Thursday when swirling winds blew flames back on them as they worked on the Devil’s Creek fire burning in rough, steep terrain near the rural town of Jordan.
They remained hospitalized Friday. Bureau of Land Management spokesperson Mark Jacobsen declined to release the extent of their injuries, and attempts to learn their conditions Saturday were unsuccessful. Three of the firefighters are U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service crew members from North Dakota, and the other two are U.S. Forest Service firefighters from New Mexico.
Read:Wildfire smoke clouds sky, hurts air quality on East Coast
In California, the Tamarack Fire south of Lake Tahoe continued to burn through timber and chaparral and threatened communities on both sides of the California-Nevada state line. The fire, sparked by lightning July 4 in Alpine County, has destroyed at least 10 buildings.
In Butte County, California, the Dixie Fire continued to burn in rugged and remote terrain, hampering firefighters’ efforts to contain the blaze as it grows eastward, becoming the state’s largest wildfire so far this year.
Heavy smoke from both huge fires lowered visibility and may at times ground aircraft providing support for fire crews. The air quality south of Lake Tahoe and across the state line into Nevada deteriorated to very unhealthy levels.
In north-central Washington, firefighters battled two blazes in Okanogan County that threatened hundreds of homes and again caused hazardous air quality conditions Saturday. And in northern Idaho, east of Spokane, Washington, a small fire near the Silverwood Theme Park prompted evacuations Friday evening at the park and in the surrounding area. The theme park was back open on Saturday with the fire half contained.
Read:Size of Oregon wildfire underscores vastness of the US West
Although hot weather with afternoon winds posed a continued threat of spreading blazes, weekend forecasts also called for a chance of scattered thunderstorms in California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and other states. However, forecasters said some could be dry thunderstorms that produce little rain but a lot of lightning, which can spark new blazes.
More than 85 large wildfires were burning around the country, most of them in Western states, and they had burned over 1.4 million acres (2,135 square miles, or more than 553,000 hectares).
Western wildfires: Crews make progress on huge Oregon blaze
The nation’s largest wildfire raged through southern Oregon on Friday but crews were scaling back some night operations as hard work and weaker winds helped reduce the spread of flames even as wildfires continued to threaten homes in neighboring California.
The Bootleg Fire, which has destroyed an area half the size of Rhode Island, was 40% surrounded after burning some 70 homes, mainly cabins, fire officials said.
At least 2,000 homes were ordered evacuated at some point during the fire and an additional 5,000 were threatened.
The upper eastern edge of the blaze continued to move toward Summer Lake, jumping fire lines on Thursday and prompting a local evacuation order for some portions of Lake County to be raised to “go now!,” fire officials said.
Read:Wildfire smoke clouds sky, hurts air quality on East Coast
Winds up to 10 miles per hour (16 kilometers per hour) could drive the flames through timber but not at the pace seen last week, when the wind-driven blaze grew exponentially, fire information officer Angela Goldman said.
The fire, which was sparked by lightning, had been expanding by up to 4 miles (6 kilometers) a day, pushed by strong winds and critically dry weather.
There was good news on the lower portion of the 624-square-mile (1,616-square-kilometer) blaze. Crews had locked in containment lines and on the lower southeastern side, crews were able to gain a substantial foothold, allowing them to cut back to nighttime patrols from what had been a “24-7 run-and-gun” fight, fire information officer Sarah Gracey said.
“For us, that’s a pretty big step,” she said. “It’s not that easy to work in a pitch-black forest in the middle of the night.”
Crews will be able to rest and contribute to dayside attacks, she said.
“We have had day after day of red flag warnings (of extreme fire danger) and today we don’t have a red flag warning,” Gracey said Thursday. However, low humidity and high temperatures remained a concern.
Read:Size of Oregon wildfire underscores vastness of the US West
That side of the blaze also had burned into an area blackened by a previous fire, creating gaps in the fuel and reducing the spread of flames through grass, shrub and timber, Gracey said.
In California, the Tamarack Fire south of Lake Tahoe had burned more than 78 square miles (202 square kilometers) of timber and head-high chaparral in national forest land. It erupted July 4 and was one of nearly two dozen blazes sparked by lightning strikes.
The fire in Alpine County has destroyed at least 10 buildings. Fire officials expected active or extreme fire behavior on Friday because of afternoon gusts and temperatures approaching 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius).
Blowing embers from flames ignited a new spot fire Thursday afternoon that jumped the highway north of Topaz Lake on the California-Nevada line, prompting a new evacuation order at Topaz Lake Estates and neighboring areas.
The fire was less than a mile from the estates, a community of around 1,200 people in Douglas County, Nevada.
“Firefighters on the ground and aircraft continue to battle the growing spot under exceptionally difficult weather and fuel condition,” the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest said in an update.
It estimated the new blaze already had burned nearly 4 square miles (10 square kilometers).
Read:Huge Oregon blaze grows as wildfires burn across western US
New mandatory evacuation orders were issued Thursday in Plumas County west of the Nevada border as the Dixie Fire continued to grow explosively eastward.
“This fire is outpacing us at moments,” Shannon Prather, the incident commander, said Thursday evening.
The fire had burned nearly 177 square miles (458 square kilometers), destroyed at least eight buildings and threatened at least 1,500 more, fire officials said.
Extremely dry conditions and recent heat waves tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight. Climate change has made the West much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
UNESCO chides Australia over Great Barrier Reef proposal
The Chinese host of this year’s meeting of the U.N. World Heritage Committee has defended the body’s proposal to label the Great Barrier Reef as “in danger” against Australian government suspicion that China influenced the finding for political reasons.
The committee, which is meeting both virtually and in the Chinese city of Fuzhou for the next two weeks, will consider the draft decision on Friday.
Read: China dinosaur footprint fossil named after Doraemon's "Nobita"
“Australia, as a member state of the World Heritage Committee, should ... attach importance to the opinions of the advisory bodies and earnestly fulfill the duty of World Heritage protection instead of making groundless accusations against other states,” said Tian Xuejun, the Chinese vice minister of education and the president of this year’s session, on Sunday.
The UNESCO committee will consider adding new sites to the World Heritage list, taking some off and adding others to the in-danger category. A draft decision to put Venice on the in-danger list prompted the Italian government to ban cruise ships from the lagoon city in a bid to avoid the designation.
Tian, speaking at the first news conference since the meetings opened last Friday, said the Great Barrier Reef proposal was based on data from Australia and recommendations from an advisory body.
Australian Environment Minister Susan Ley, who is in Europe lobbying UNESCO delegates against supporting the in-danger listing, was not immediately available to comment on the Chinese criticism.
Her office on Monday released a report by the government-funded Australian Institute of Marine Science that indicated widespread recovery of the reef’s coral. Monitoring by the institute found coral cover had increased during the respite from severe weather over the last year.
“The release of the full report underlines our view that the World Heritage Committee proposed listing had not been based on the latest information,” Ley said in a statement.
Read:India cranking up border infrastructure to narrow gap with China
Australia reacted angrily when the draft was released last month.
“This decision was flawed. Clearly there were politics behind it,” Ley said, without mentioning China by name.
Relations between the two nations have soured in recent years, with Australia blocking Chinese technology and investment in key infrastructure, and China using tariffs and other measures to reduce its imports from Australia.
Australia was warned in 2014 that an in-danger listing was being considered for the Great Barrier Reef, which was designated a world heritage site in 1981.
The draft decision said that Australia’s long-term plan for the reef, a network of 2,500 reefs covering 348,000 square kilometers (134,000 square miles), “requires stronger and clearer commitments, in particular towards urgently countering the effects of climate change.”
“We acknowledge very much the work which has been done in Australia, but our text in the draft decision ... is a proposal for putting the site on the list of world heritage in danger because of the threats which were identified,” said Mechtild Roessler, the UNESCO director of the World Heritage Committee.
Read:Australian court upholds ban on most international travel
Ernesto Ottone Ramírez, the assistant director-general for culture at UNESCO, said that an in-danger listing should be viewed as a collective call for action from all the member states.
“It’s something that should be seen as something positive and not, as what we heard from some of the authorities in other countries, as a punishment,” he said, joining the news conference from Paris. “It’s how we preserve our heritage for future generations.”
Wildfires rage in Russia’s Siberia, cause airport to close
Heavy smoke from raging wildfires covered the Russian city of Yakutsk and 50 other Siberian towns and settlements Sunday, temporarily halting operations at the city’s airport.
Russia has been plagued by widespread forest fires, blamed on unusually high temperatures and the neglect of fire safety rules, with the Sakha-Yakutia region in northeastern Siberia being the worst affected.
Read:Huge Oregon blaze grows as wildfires burn across western US
Local emergency officials said 187 fires raged in the region on Sunday, and the total area engulfed by blazes has grown by 100,000 hectares (about 247,000 acres) in the past 24 hours.
“The situation with wildfires in our republic is very difficult. I repeat that we are experiencing the driest summer in the past 150 years in Yakutia, and the month of June was the hottest on record. This, together with the dry thunderstorms that occur nearly daily in our republic, brought about significant wildfires,” Aysen Nikolayev, Yakutia’s governor, told reporters.
Smoke from the fires covered 51 towns, settlements and cities in the region, including the capital Yakutsk, forcing authorities to suspend all flights in and out of the city.
Read: Western wildfires threatening American Indian tribal lands
“We can’t see each other because of the smoke, our eyes are burning and overall the smoke is very dangerous for the health of us villagers,” said Vasiliy Krivoshapkin, resident of Magaras. “We see on television planes that are dropping water on the burning forest but they aren’t sending these planes to help us for some reason. Why is there no help?”
Russia’s Emergency Ministry said Sunday it had deployed two amphibious aircraft to Yakutia to help tackle the fires. More than 2,200 people are involved in the firefighting effort.
Merkel tours ‘surreal’ flood scene, vows aid, climate action
German Chancellor Angela Merkel surveyed what she called a “surreal, ghostly” scene in a devastated village on Sunday, pledging quick financial aid and a redoubled political focus on curbing climate change as the death toll from floods in Western Europe climbed above 180.
Merkel toured Schuld, a village on a tight curve of the Ahr River in western Germany where many buildings were damaged or destroyed by rapidly rising floodwaters Wednesday night.
Although the mayor of Schuld said no one was killed or injured there, many other places weren’t so lucky. The death toll in the Ahrweiler area, where Schuld is located, stood at 112. Authorities said people are still missing and they fear the toll may still rise.
In neighboring North Rhine-Westphalia state, Germany’s most populous, 46 people were killed, including four firefighters. Belgium confirmed 31 deaths.
Read:Europe flooding toll over 180 as rescuers dig deeper
Merkel said she came away from Schuld, still partly strewn with rubble and mud in bright sunshine, with “a real picture of, I must say, the surreal, ghostly situation.”
“It is shocking — I would almost say that the German language barely has words for the devastation that has been wreaked,” she said at a news conference in a nearby town.
Merkel said authorities will work to “set the world right again in this beautiful region, step by step,” and her Cabinet will approve an immediate and medium-term financial aid program on Wednesday.
Finance Minister Olaf Scholz told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that more than 300 million euros ($354 million) will be needed immediately. And he said officials must set up a longer-term rebuilding program which, from experience with previous flooding, will be in the billions of euros.
“Thankfully, Germany is a country that can manage this financially,” said Merkel, who is stepping down as chancellor following an election in September. “Germany is a strong country and we will stand up to this force of nature in the short term — but also in the medium and long term, through policy that pays more regard to nature and the climate than we did in recent years. That will be necessary too.”
Climate scientists say the link between extreme weather and global warming is unmistakable and the urgency to tackle climate change undeniable.
Scientists can’t yet say for sure whether climate change caused the flooding, but they insist that it certainly exacerbates the extreme weather disasters on display around the world.
“We must get faster in the battle against climate change,” Merkel said, pointing to policies already set in motion by Germany and the European Union to cut greenhouse gas emissions. “And nevertheless, the second lesson is that we must pay great attention to adaptation” to climate change.
Investing in fighting climate change is expensive, she said, but failing to do so is even more costly.
“One flood isn’t the example of climate change, but if we look at the loss events of recent years, decades, then they are simply more frequent than they were previously — so we must make a great effort,” Merkel said.
Read:Deadly flooding, heatwaves in Europe, highlight urgency of climate action: WMO
Residents in the devastated areas will be needing support and comfort for a long time yet.
“This flood will leave scars on the people of Schuld — scars that you don’t forget, that can’t be overcome, because our lives changed from one day to the next,” Mayor Helmut Lussi said, breaking into sobs as he spoke.
Although the rain has stopped in the worst-affected areas of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, storms and downpours have persisted elsewhere in western and central Europe. There was flooding Saturday night in the German-Czech border area, in Germany’s southeastern corner, and over the border in Austria.
About 130 people were evacuated in Germany’s Berchtesgaden area after the Ache River swelled. At least one person was killed and the rail line to Berchtesgaden was closed.
The Berchtesgaden area also is the home of the sliding track in Koenigssee, the site of major international bobsled, skeleton and luge events for more than 50 years. Large segments of that track were destroyed, parts of the concrete chute turned into rubble by the rushing water.
A flash flood hit the nearby Austrian town of Hallein late Saturday, but there were no reports of casualties. Farther west, flooding struck parts of the town of Kufstein. Heavy rain and storms caused serious damage in several parts of Austria.
Pope Francis prayed for the flood victims and in support of the “efforts of all to help those who suffered great damage.”
“I express my closeness to the populations of Germany, Belgium and Holland, hit by catastrophic flooding,” he said Sunday in his first public appearance to the faithful in St. Peter’s Square after major surgery. “May the Lord welcome the deceased and comfort the family members.”
In the eastern Belgian town of Pepinster, soldiers and firefighters on Sunday searched for any remaining survivors or bodies, according to public broadcaster RTBF. All the houses still standing have been searched, so the effort focused on those that collapsed and in a valley downstream for anyone possibly swept away by the raging torrent.
The ground in the town remains unstable and several more houses could collapse. “We have to be careful with every step we take,” fire officer Olivier Jiust was quoted as saying.
Read:Death toll from Europe floods tops 150 as water recedes
The flood-stricken Dutch town of Venlo allowed most residents back home Sunday, and trains began running again in the area, authorities said.
Meanwhile, a cow swept 100 kilometers (60 miles) along a flooded Dutch river will live out its days in a meadow, according to its owner. Farmer Har Smeets told local broadcaster 1Limburg that he lost 10 other cows to high water in the southern part of the Netherlands, but one was found by a cyclist outside the town of Escharen and rescued by firefighters.
The cow, originally from the town of Echt, was seen Saturday standing with only its nose poking out of the muddy water of the Maas River, unable to free itself. Fire brigades managed to pull the animal onto dry land, and authorities traced the owner via an ear tag. Smeets says the cow has eaten and is resting comfortably.
“It is unbelievable that such an animal can swim or float for so long and then still have the strength to come ashore,” he said.
Should a hospital come at the cost of ruining lungs of Chattogram?
Residents of Chattogram, the country's most important urban centre next to the capital, have voiced their displeasure over plans to build a 500-bed hospital as well as a medical college over six acres of land in a historic corner of the city, that is also cherished for its greenery.
The CRB area, that takes its name from the Central Railway Building - built by the British colonial administration in 1872 as the headquarters of the Assam-Bengal Railway - is a scenic, hilly quarter of the Port City known for its Shireesh trees (Albizia Lebeck) Surrounded by centuries-old trees, hills, hills and valleys, this area is home to a variety of species of birds and animals.
Chattogram residents celebrate the Bengali New Year on April 14 every year on an open stage called "Shireeshtala" at CRB area. CRB also hosts the famed "Boli Khela", an annual freehand wrestling challenge that draws competitors from far and wide.
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Besides, ordinary citizens of all ages and backgrounds gather in the area every day to catch the fresh air.
It's not as if Chatdgaiyas are spoilt for choice when it comes to medical facilities in the city. The trading hub's moneyed residents routinely have to visit Dhaka to avail the services available at large, private hospitals. This demand for private healthcare has now been noticed. Earlier this year, Evercare Hospitals opened a 470-bed facility in the Ananna R/A of Chattogram. Evercare have also taken over the old Apollo Hospital in Dhaka from the STS Group.
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Recently it emerged that Bangladesh Railway, which owns much of the land in the CRB area, struck a deal in March 2020 with United Enterprise and Company (owners of United Hospital in Dhaka) to build a 500-bed hospital and 100-seat medical college on six acres of land in CRB.
19 dead, dozens missing in Germany floods; 2 die in Belgium
At least 19 people have died and dozens of people are missing in Germany after heavy flooding turned streams and streets into raging torrents, sweeping away cars and causing some buildings to collapse.
Authorities in the western county of Euskirchen said Thursday that eight deaths had been reported there in connection with the floods. Rescue operations were hampered by the fact that phone and internet connections were down in part of the region, which is southwest of Cologne.
Police in the western city of Koblenz said four people had died in Ahrweiler county, and about 50 were trapped on the roofs of their houses awaiting rescue.
Six houses had collapsed overnight in the village of Schuld. “Many people have been reported missing to us,” police said.
Read:Tropical Storm Elsa nears Cuba amid fears of flooding
Schuld is located in the Eifel, a volcanic region of rolling hills and small valleys southwest of Cologne.
The full extent of the damage in the region was still unclear after many villages were cut off by floodwater and landslides that made roads impassable. Videos posted on social media showed cars floating down streets and houses partly collapsed in some places.
Authorities have declared an emergency in the region after days of heavy rainfall that also affected large parts of western and central Germany, as well as neighboring countries, causing widespread damage.
Police said four people died in separate incidents after their basements were flooded in Cologne, Kamen and Wuppertal, where authorities warned that a dam threatened to burst.
Authorities in the Rhine-Sieg county south of Cologne ordered the evacuation of several villages below the Steinbachtal reservoir amid fears the dam there could also break.
A fireman drowned Wednesday during rescue work in the western German town of Altena and another collapsed during rescue operations at a power plant in Werdohl-Elverlingsen. One man was missing in the eastern town of Joehstadt after disappearing while trying to secure his property from rising waters, authorities said.
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Rail connections were suspended in large parts of North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state. Governor Armin Laschet, who is running to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor in this fall’s German election, was expected to visit the flood-hit city of Hagen later Thursday.
German weather service DWD predicted the rainfall would ease Thursday.
Relentless rains through the night worsened the flooding conditions in eastern Belgium, where one person was reported drowned and at least another was missing.
Some towns saw water levels rise to unprecedented levels and had their centers turned into gushing rivers.
Major highways were inundated and in the south and east of the nation, the railway service said all traffic was stopped, adding that “alternative transport is highly unlikely.”
In eastern Eupen, on the German border, one man was reported dead after he was swept away by a torrent, a local governor told RTBf network.
In Liege, the main city in eastern Belgium, the Meuse river could break its banks by early afternoon and spill into the heart of the city. Police warned the citizens to take precautionary measures.
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Authorities in the southern Dutch town of Valkenburg, close to the German and Belgian borders, evacuated a care home and a hospice overnight amid flooding that turned the tourist town’s main street into a river, Dutch media reported.
The Dutch government sent some 70 troops to the southern province of Limburg late Wednesday to help with tasks including transporting evacuees and filling sandbags as rivers burst their banks. There were no reports of injuries linked to flooding in the Netherlands.
Unusually intense rains have also inundated a swath of northeast France this week, downing trees and forcing the closure of dozens of roads. A train route to Luxembourg was disrupted, and firefighters evacuated dozens of people from homes near the Luxembourg and German border and in the Marne region, according to local broadcaster France Bleu.
The equivalent of two months of rain has fallen on some areas in the last one or two days, according to the French national weather service. With the ground already saturated, the service forecast more downpours Thursday and issued flood warnings for 10 regions.