Two weeks after the devastating floods in western Germany more than 70 people are still missing the official death toll stands at 181 more than half of the victims died in Germany’s r valley close to Belgium these are the latest pictures from the town of Schultz in some areas only the foundation walls mark where buildings once stood they were either washed away or had to be pulled down and this was the scene in Schultz two weeks ago experts say their region will need years to rebuild some households are still without power telecommunication and drinking water supplies are not yet back to normal everywhere either well let’s bring in our correspondent Kate brady who is on the ground there in our viola uh okay dozens are still missing is there any hope of finding anyone alive because there are still people still missing and uh there are still hopes that they will indeed be found alive and well but of course with every day that goes by both for authorities and not least of all for the friends family loved ones of people who are still missing it is yet another difficult day for them and one of the most sad challenges facing authorities right now as well is that they’re finding it very difficult to identify many of the bodies that have been found of course usually it’s necessary to have some kind of material to be able to do a DNA comparison but given the extent of the destruction that’s been caused to people’s homes and people’s belongings here in these flood-hit regions that is proving very difficult at the moment rebuilding obviously will take years but what about the more urgent tasks like restoring water supply and electricity well.
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I was talking to some of the uh disaster agency aid this morning and they were saying that step by step bit by bit many regions are indeed having their electricity switched back on and it’s uh currently estimated that around at least 5 thousand uh people of homes are currently without electricity of course that’s still uh five thousand that are have facing this difficulty every day but that is um some huge progress that’s been made in recent days just a few days ago we were talking about hundreds of thousands of people without electricity but as you mentioned water as well especially clean drinking water that’s safe to use that’s also still an issue and here in Arvada for example thousands of liters of clean water is currently being brought in by the disaster agency aid thw and also by the German red cross of course in the meantime some access to normal water tap water has been reinstalled and that’s been tested constantly but in those cases the advice is of course that that water should indeed be boiled before use okay i understand there was some anger as well directed at the authorities about not having been forewarned in time and now the slow pace of reconstruction what are you hearing what is the vibe there on the ground well it’s interesting a lot of people that i’ve been speaking to residents who have been badly affected by these floods many of them saying they don’t understand some of this frustration that entire regions are finding themselves in unprecedented circumstances but certainly as you mentioned when it came to the warning system and how early or rather late many people were warned if at all about the impending floods.
The impending danger and there is certainly still a lot of frustration there many people asking could they have been warned earlier and they’re going to be asking a lot of questions that’s already underway we’re seeing in some of these special commissions that have been set up in the states uh that have been worst hit by these floods so there’s still a lot of questions to be answered and essentially who is responsible at least of all could those lives those lives that have been lost could they indeed have been saved uw correspondent kate brady there thank you very much kate well homes were flooded complete livelihoods destroyed dws tessa walter visited a young syrian from avila who has lost everything for the second time in his life in the syrian civil war and now in Germany what was once his livelihood is now only muddy debris moa made abdul hamid own a small barber shop in availa he came to germany as a syrian refugee now after the floods he’s left with nothing for the second time in his life she’s been i’ve been living here in germany for almost six years now back in syria i lost everything my house my store everything.
