Germany, Belgium remember deadly floods 1 year later

BERLIN: Germany and Belgium are commemorating the deadly floods that hit the countries a year ago, with high-profile memorials planned Thursday to pay tribute to the more than 230 people who lost their lives on the night of July 14-15, 2021.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeiner and Chancellor Olaf Scholz were due to visit the Ahr valley, where at least 134 people died when heavy rain turned streams into raging torrents that swept away houses, roads and bridges.

The region south of Cologne was hardest hit by the floods. Reconstruction work is still going on there, and scars of the devastation are clearly visible one year later.

Steinmeier also plans to attend a church service in the town of Euskirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia. Germany’s most populous state recorded 49 deaths in the disaster.

Edith Stoffels, who has lived in the village of Gemuend near Germany's border with Belgium for 50 years, called the floods "a nightmare.”

"When we looked out the attic window upstairs in the morning...it was like a lake here," she recalled.

"Garden shed, cars, everything was gone,” Stoffels said. "It’s unimaginable.”

Across the border in eastern Belgium, King Philippe and Queen Mathilde traveled to a series of remembrance events Thursday that were to include meeting with survivors and families and friends of some of the 39 people who died when the sudden floods hit several Ardennes villages.

The main event is set for Chenee, an area of Liege where the royals will be joined by Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and leading politicians. But in neighborhoods along the Ourthe and Vesdre rivers, which swelled to record levels last year, residents planned more intimate events to mark the loss of their way of life.

Like in Germany, many families have yet to recover from the devastation, either because their homes remain in disrepair or they had to move elsewhere because their houses were destroyed.