\nAt least 20 people have died and many more are missing following severe floods in western Germany, police say.<\/p>\n
The worst of the flooding has been in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, where buildings and cars have been washed away.<\/p>\n
Two people have also died in neighbouring Belgium, while the Netherlands has also been badly hit.<\/p>\n
It follows record rainfall in parts of western Europe that has caused major rivers to burst their banks.<\/p>\n
Malu Dreyer, chief of the Rhineland-Palatinate state, described the flooding as a “catastrophe”.<\/p>\n
“There are dead, missing and many people still in danger,” she said. “All of our emergency services are in action round the clock and risking their own lives.”<\/p>\n
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is in the US ahead of a meeting with President Joe Biden, said she was “shocked by the disaster”.<\/p>\n
Up to 70 people are believed to be missing in the Ahrweiler district of Rhineland-Palatinate, after the Ahr river, which flows into the Rhine, burst its banks.<\/p>\n
Police helicopters and hundreds of soldiers have been deployed to some areas to help stranded residents. Earlier, police said dozens of people were waiting on rooftops to be rescued.<\/p>\n
Schools have been closed around the west of the country, while transport links have been severely disrupted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least 20 people have died and many more are missing following severe floods in western Germany, police say. The worst of the flooding has been in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia, where buildings and cars have been washed away. Two people have also died in neighbouring Belgium, while the Netherlands has also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":211503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Flood.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}