An explosion at an industrial park for chemical companies in Germany killed at least two people on Tuesday, with 31 others injured and several still missing hours later. Fire officials who tested the air said there did not appear to be a danger to nearby residents after authorities initially urged people to shelter inside. The explosion at the waste management facility of the Chempark site in Leverkusen, near Cologne, sent a large black cloud into the air. It took firefighters almost four hours to extinguish the fire that took hold after the explosion. Read:Residents say flood-hit German towns got little warning Germany’s Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance initially classified the incident as “an extreme threat.” Later on Tuesday, however, the Cologne fire department tweeted that pollution measurements “do not show any kind of abnormality.” They said the smoke had diminished but that they would continue to measure the air for toxins. The city of Leverkusen said the explosion occurred in storage tanks for solvents. Later Tuesday, Chempark operator Currenta said that a second fatality had been confirmed. It put the number of injured at 31 and said five employees were missing. “Unfortunately hope of finding them alive is fading rapidly,” the head of Chempark, Lars Friedrich, said in a statement. City officials asked all residents to stay inside until the late afternoon and warned people from outside Leverkusen to avoid the region. City officials later also warned people not to let children play outside, use outside pools or eat fruit and vegetables from their backyards in the coming days. They said experts would only be able to tell in a few days how toxic the soot from the explosion would be. Read:Germany defends preparation for floods, considers lessons Currenta said the explosion happened at 9:40 a.m. and then developed into a fire. It said three big tanks were affected by the explosion, but that it was too early to know the cause. “Sirens were operated to warn residents and warning alerts were sent,” Currenta said. Police shut down several nearby major highways for several hours. Leverkusen is home to Bayer, one of Germany’s biggest chemical companies. It has about 163,000 residents and borders Cologne, which is Germany’s fourth biggest city and has around 1 million inhabitants. Many residents work at Bayer, which is one of the biggest employers in the region. The chemical park is located close to the banks of the Rhine river. Read: 19 dead, dozens missing in Germany floods; 2 die in Belgium Currenta has three facilities in the region. More than 70 different companies are based at the locations in Leverkusen, Dormagen and Krefeld-Uerdingen. The mayor of Leverkusen, Uwe Richrath, called the blast “a tragic moment for Leverkusen.”

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. Read:Storm floods German vaccine center, 5 injured by heavy hail 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. Read:Floods and mudslides kill 4, another 7 missing in Sri Lanka 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.