Yo, Western Europe is experiencing some nasty flooding
So, as typical for tumblr there's not really any attention for this, but the last couple of days there's been some very very major flooding in Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
I'm not talking tiny floods, I'm talking a 3-digit death toll, flooded towns, broken dykes, billions of euros in damages, mandatory evacuations. How? Heavy rain. There was about as much rain in a few hours as you'd normally have in like a months. The Ahr, Volme and Meuse/Maas and Geul and Roer rivers, just to name a few have burst their banks and flooded the surrounding areas.
So far Germany had been hit the hardest with landslides, ravaged towns and a 3-digit death toll. Belgium got away better but even there there are videos going around of rivers through towns, people on their roofs, awaiting evac. In the town of Maaseik (Belgium) there's only a flimsy brick wall and bags of sand holding back the water.
In both Belgium and Luxembourg there have been reports of unsafe drinking water.
Honestly, the Netherlands came away pretty lightly, but even then, the situation in the Limburg province has been declared an official disaster site by the government. Yesterday and the day before Valkenburg flooded and was unreachable for a while. A bridge even collapsed! Venlo and Roermond (two major cities) have been partially evacuated and Maastricht (province capitol) barely escaped the rising water, but barely.
Also, there's a hole in the dyke. I repeat, there's a hole in the dyke!
No seriously, I was just checking the news and it turns out that today one of the dykes in the province of Limburg (Meerssen to be exact) has broken. The surrounding towns are being evacuated right now.
This is crazy. This is the Netherlands we're talking about, best flood defenses in the world, for a flood to be able to puncture the dykes is a Major Feat and an indication this is some Heavy Shit.
Tbh, the river dykes haven't been built to the level of resilience of the sea dykes, but still.
Dating: July 16 2021, afternoon local time
Edit: here's a few liveblogs
NOS Liveblog [July 15] [July 16] (Netherlands) (Dutch)
Tagesschau Liveblog [July 15] [July 16] (German)
RTL Liveblog (Luxembourg) (English
VRT Liveblog [July 15] [July 16] (Belgium) (Dutch)
BBC Liveblog
Edit2: Switzerland is also affected, though I haven't read much about that (yet)
