Germany floods: Amid disaster, cleanup efforts begin
In Germany, days of continuous rain have caused severe flooding in the southern states of Bavaria and neighboring Baden-Württemberg. A state of emergency has been declared in some areas. DW reporter Tessa Walther reports from one of the affected areas in Bavaria.
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00:00 The amount of items that have to be thrown out is huge.
00:05 Heidi Wild is a resident of Diemelstadt.
00:08 Her house was hit hard by the floods.
00:12 The basement was completely flooded.
00:16 She had 10 minutes to evacuate on Saturday evening.
00:20 She is still in shock about what happened.
00:25 It was really bad.
00:26 I was taking care of my daughter's dog.
00:29 They said if we don't finish packing we will have to leave the dogs behind.
00:33 It just wasn't acceptable for me.
00:36 It was a catastrophe.
00:39 Luckily, she could save herself and her pets.
00:44 Now the clean-up has started.
00:46 Many people have come to help.
00:51 Even if you always say every man for himself, but in this case everyone was there to help.
00:56 Everyone really helped.
00:57 So I can't say anything bad about that.
01:01 There is still a lot of work to be done.
01:06 At her neighbour's home as well.
01:09 Tobias Braunmiller invites us into his house.
01:18 Everything was full of water here, right up to here.
01:22 And everything is now broken.
01:26 Many neighbours have come to volunteer for the clean-up.
01:30 Most of the debris has been taken outside.
01:34 We follow him into the basement.
01:38 The cellar here was also full.
01:39 There is still a bit of stuff left.
01:41 But many people have come here to help too.
01:44 And you can see from the door just how powerful the water was.
01:48 The door was pushed out of its frame by the sheer force of the current.
01:53 The rest of the basement doesn't look any better.
01:58 The remaining pieces of furniture are being taken out by the fire brigade.
02:05 It's only when things get calm that you understand what happened here.
02:10 There are also a lot of memories that you can no longer save.
02:18 These personal items are mostly gone for good.
02:22 While people here in D-Dorf are just starting to realise the extent of the disaster, for
02:28 other towns in southern Germany, the worst is yet to come, as water levels continue to
02:35 rise.