Dozens dead as Europe ravaged by floods linked to climate change

Extreme weather linked to climate change has ravaged Europe, with at least 80 people killed in Germany's worst floods in living memory and 11 dead in Belgium. Torrential rains have also hit Luxembourg, the Netherlands and France.

Emergency crews in western Germany were on Friday searching for more than a thousand people missing in what the Bild daily called the “flood of death”.

"I fear that we will only see the full extent of the disaster in the coming days," Chancellor Angela Merkel said from Washington, where she pledged full support for the victims.

Armin Laschet, the premier of the hard-hit North Rhine-Westphalia state, blamed the devastating weather on global warming.

"We will be faced with such events over and over, and that means we need to speed up climate protection measures ... because climate change isn't confined to one state," he said.

Among the worst hit areas is Ahrweiler county, south of Cologne, where a state of emergency has been declared.

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Environmentalists in North Rhine-Westphalia said severe flooding in the region were the result of failed policies by state lawmakers.

“The catastrophic results of the heavy rain in the past few days are largely homemade,” Holger Sticht, of Friends of the Earth Germany, told local media.

“We urgently need to change course.”
Western Europe devastated
Record rainfall has devastated much of western Europe, causing rivers to burst their banks – with more wet weather forecast for Friday.

Entire communities were lost after torrential rains ravaged towns and villages, washing away homes and triggering landslides.

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Officials have warned that communities in both Germany and Belgium "are still in danger", with the death toll expected to rise.

Some areas remain cut off as emergency crews work to reach those missing, while a dam near the German-Belgian border was at risk of collapse.

Elsewhere, thousands of people were evacuated in the Maastricht, in the Netherlands as flood water rose to dangerous levels – while Switzerland, Luxembourg and France were also on alert.