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Dozens killed after record rain in Germany and Belgium
- Roritharr 5y agoMy in-laws live on a mountainside overlooking one of the flooded towns. It's a devastating sight, especially knowing that direct family had to be evacuated, while you are sitting in "watching" distance in more or less absolute safety. The reactions of our politicians are not inspiring much confidence, but I guess at this point it is to be expected.
- loopz 5y agoA 20 meter wide river turned into 200 meter wide river. This damaged several villages along the river. A huge area hit by heavy rainfall. Are we just leaving a 10.000 year old equlibrium with nature, an equilibrium specially suited to agriculture and domestication (please compare graphs for 10K years in link below)? https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-co2/ https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-co2/
- frosted-flakes 5y agoWhat exactly are you asking? (And English universally uses a full stop as a decimal point, not a thousands mark. 10.000 means 10 with three digits of precision.)
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoWidth means little without knowing the slope of the land. The river's main route is narrow (because erosion happens 24/7) and the flood plain is broad (because erosion happens rarely).
- loopz 5y agoThis is obviously some of alot of infrastructure that today reside in harm's way from chaotic climate change. The flood moved cars, houses and eradicated buildings. So that should tell something of sudden erosion too.
- wrs 5y agoHow many extreme outlier events per year do we need before we can stop saying “linking any single event to global warming is complicated” in every article?
- smt88 5y agoIt's not about how many events, but how many years. We can say that climate change would be expected to cause these weather events, but weather isn't climate until it's observed for much longer than we have so far. There's no doubt climate change can and will produce these effects, so the best articles will just say that A) these events are extreme, and B) we will see many more of them until they become the new normal.
- anigbrowl 5y agoWhile caution is laudable, it's also frequently an excuse for inaction (not by you). As a person of middle years who has regarded CC as An Issue for ~25 years now, I'd say the new normal has arrived.
- bena 5y agoYeah, environmental concerns, including climate change is part of what inspired Al Gore to run for Congress in 1976. So, is like 45 years enough? And that's the thing about incremental change, it creeps up on you. So yeah, last year wasn't that much different from last year, but compared to 5 years ago, 10, 50? There's always an excuse to do nothing.
- smt88 5y agoI understand your point, but I don't consider it to be "caution" so much as "accurate". Scientists (and journalists) should tell the truth about science, even if they think it will negatively impact behavior. Otherwise they'll lose credibility later (see: CDC and "don't wear masks" ca. March 2020).
- anigbrowl 5y ago
- s5300 5y agoWow. 70 deaths in these countries just from flooding seems like... a lot in the year 2021 Note: I am fully aware of the dangers/extreme power of fast moving water/flooding
- alternatetwo 5y agoYes, it's quite the horrific number, and I expect it to rise still ... here in Germany it's currently 59 confirmed, that number was lower a few hours ago - and apparently this doesn't even include bodies they know exist, but couldn't get to yet. And 1300 missing currently. This village was essentially completely destroyed - this is the best visualization of this I've seen, from /r/europe: https://i.redd.it/9fdhwvte8fb71.jpg https://i.redd.it/9fdhwvte8fb71.jpg We have apparently no statewide warning mechanism or even if we had, had the foresight to evacuate this region - now, there are calls for evacuation for other, not yet flooded, regions. I have most of the info from this German article: https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2021-07/unwetter-katastrophe-hochwasser-rlp-nrw-todesfaelle-vermisste https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/zeitgeschehen/2021-07/unwet...
- stkdump 5y agoI had a warning for 'extrem erbiebigem dauerregen', I think since sunday or monday in the Nina app. So something like extremely plentyful sustained rainfall. I think putting 1 and 1 together, you could expect some flooding to occour. But of course the details (where do we actually need to evacuate) are more complex. It seems for example my city, while inside the region wasn't hit nearly as hard as a few years back, which was already a once in a century flooding, but not so widespread.
- higeorge13 5y agoThis is a shocking picture; as if the whole town was built on top of an ancient river.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoYup. There's clearly a former oxbow there. Europe was basically all deforested farmland at one point. As it industrialized the last places farming was economically viable were the most fertile land which is going to be the floodplain and the river's former oxbow and resulting swamp. Then a developer probably comes along (say 1910 or 1920 or something) and builds on the easiest to build land, which is the already cleared land of the last farm to croak. Then 100yr later we get a record rainfall and the river takes it all back for a couple weeks.
- GoalooUS 5y agosad news, can't believe this happened in 2021
- justshowpost 5y ago> Dozens Death toll is 80, according to the latest reports https://www.bild.de/news/2021/news/unwetter-news-im-live-ticker-heftiger-regen-flutet-halb-deutschland-77083926.bild.html https://www.bild.de/news/2021/news/unwetter-news-im-live-tic...
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y agoI'm looking at a picture of Altenahr flooded: https://twitter.com/WxNB_/status/1415629704472760324 https://twitter.com/WxNB_/status/1415629704472760324 https://twitter.com/Zersorger/status/1415654344184188932 https://twitter.com/Zersorger/status/1415654344184188932 Isn't that a floodplain? We know what that name means, right? When did this plain last flood? Sadly, "unprecedented" floods should now not also be "unexpected".
- peterbraden 5y agoWhat a condescending comment. You realize how many millions of people live in flood plains, and how climate change means that existing mitigations are not sufficient anymore?
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago>You realize how many millions of people live in flood plain Yes? Building on flood plains has been a bad idea for a while now. (1) > how climate change means that existing mitigations are not sufficient anymore Is that not implied by what I already said: "Sadly, "unprecedented" floods should now not also be "unexpected"." 1) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-51712267 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-51712267 it actually is a floodplain, right? Calling it "condescending" to mention that many people are in that known bad situation, will not in itself make them safe, will it?
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y agoI am very sorry if my comments came across of callous or dismissive of tragedy, that was not my intent. But, we also need to talk about known risks, and how they are getting worse, and how it was known that they would get worse. And failure to plan. A floodplain is one of these risks.
- rasz 5y agoLooking at Guardian and BBC coverage all flooded areas are either flood plains and old river beds where people diverted river to make a bend and build a small town in its place.
- kaminar 5y agoHilarious that so many look to "blame" an idiotic idea, rather than act or send aid. Circle jerk.