The first signs of the flood disaster in Germany had already been recorded by satellites nine days earlier. Four days before the floods, the European flood warning system (Efas) warned the governments of the Federal Republic and Belgium of floods on the Rhine and Meuse. Twenty-four hours in advance, the German authorities were predicted almost precisely which districts would be affected by flooding, including areas on the Ahr where more than 93 people later died.
This is what Hannah Cloke, professor of hydrology at Reading University in the UK and one of the developers of the European flood warning system, said. Your verdict in the “Sunday Times”: “Monumental system failure” is the reason for one of the deadliest natural disasters in Germany since the Second World War. “The fact that people have not been evacuated or have not received the warnings suggests something may have gone wrong.”
She told ZDF on Sunday evening that the warning data had been transmitted to Germany over a large area. But “somewhere this warning chain is broken, so that the warnings did not reach the people”.
The North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior has now also admitted that the flooding did not come as a surprise. Official warnings of extreme storms took concrete form last Monday at 10:28 am, “Bild” quotes the ministry as saying. Since such an event was foreseeable, a “state situation” was set up on Tuesday. The goal: to recognize at an early stage whether supra-local help is needed in a district or an independent city.
This raises the question of whether the many deaths in the catastrophe could have been prevented. And whether civil protection has systematically failed in Germany – and who is responsible for it.
The FDP sees the blame on Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU). “The timely warnings from the meteorologists have not been adequately communicated to the citizens either by the authorities or by public broadcasters,” said Michael Theurer, Vice-President of the German Press Agency. “The picture is of a considerable system failure for which the Federal Minister of the Interior Seehofer bears direct personal responsibility.”
The left is already calling for his resignation. Either the government did not take the warning seriously or it was not forwarded to the responsible authorities with the necessary emphasis, explains Left Party leader Susanne Hennig-Wellsow. “Both would be unforgivable and a serious political mistake. And given the extent of the catastrophe, it is so serious that a resignation of the responsible minister is more than appropriate.”
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The SPD health politician Karl Lauterbach also passes a harsh judgment: “We are just as poorly prepared for disaster control as we are for pandemic protection.” Germany must prepare better for future pandemics and natural disasters. “The infrastructure for this must be created and expanded, disaster control is of central importance here,” he told the “Rheinische Post”.
The North Rhine-Westphalian Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) admits there is a need for improvement in disaster control in his state, but sees no major fundamental problems here. In the “Bild live” political talk “The Right Questions”, the CDU politician said on Sunday evening: “Not everything could have worked 100 percent.” Because then there should have been no deaths. But: “As far as I know today, there were no major fundamental problems.”
The head of the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief (BBK), Armin Schuster, also defends himself. “Our warning infrastructure worked in the federal government,” emphasized Schuster on Sunday evening in the ZDF’s “heute journal”. “The German Meteorological Service gave relatively good warnings.” The problem is that it is often not possible to say half an hour in advance which location will be hit with what amount of rain.
A spokesman for the DWD told the ZDF that the warning management on the part of his authority had gone very well. “We did what we had to do.” The municipality had been warned of rainfall of up to 200 liters per square meter with sufficient advance notice. In many places, the highest warning level applied.
“We sent out 150 warning messages via our apps, via the media,” said Schuster. He pointed out that the BBK’s “Nina” warning app had nine million users. However, he couldn’t say where siren warned people – and where they weren’t.
Hartmut Ziebs, President of the German Fire Brigade Association from 2016 to 2019, also makes serious accusations against the federal government. This did not involve the population enough in the national disaster control, because one does not want to “burden” the people with it.
In an open letter, quoted from “Bild”, it says: “For years the federal government has carried out exercises under the title Lükex. The unthinkable was played through and analyzed. Catalogs of demands were drawn up. Consequences? Holds zero! Can’t happen, mustn’t happen, we can’t explain it to the population, it costs too much money, the list of reasons for rejection is almost inexhaustible. ”
The British scientist Cloke sees failure in Germany on several levels. “There is no nationwide uniform approach to flood risks. You need different flood plans for different scenarios, ”she says.
Nevertheless, Cloke also sees the citizens as having responsibility. Each individual still has to take care of emergency plans, food reserves and medical supplies.
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