- Title: Residents show how floods slammed into their homes, destroying everything
- Date: 16th July 2021
- Summary: SCHULD, GERMANY (JULY 16, 2021) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SCHULD FISH FARMER ACHIM HUECK STANDING WHERE HIS BUSINESS USED TO BE (SOUNDBITE) (German) SCHULD FISH FARMER, ACHIM HUECK, IN TEARS, SAYING: "I had just put another 35,000 euros into the house over the last two weeks. Everything, new water pipes laid. I still have to pay the bills." DEAD FISH IN POOL OF WATER DEAD FISH ON GROUND (SOUNDBITE) (German) SCHULD FISH FARMER, ACHIM HUECK, SAYING: "I just managed to get out myself. Luckily I still had two trailers loaded with fish barrels. And then I said to (HIS PARTNER) Andrea: out, out, out! It was rising really fast, it started from the path back here. There was a path, there were ponds, lots of them up there. Fishing hut, toilet facilities, everything is gone. All gone. Fish are all gone. But they can be replaced." DEAD FISH IN POOL OF WATER DEAD FISH AMONG RUBBLE (SOUNDBITE) (German) SCHULD FISH FARMER, ACHIM HUECK, SAYING: "I've been investing a lot lately because I want to make provisions for my old age. A week ago, I had 100 metres of water pipes laid at the back. I had everything done for the electricity. And I had to buy a lot of fish. There was a virus on the way and I only got healthy fish. That was very important. And that's why I had to get a lot of fish. And that was quite a lot of money." VARIOUS OF RUBBLE (SOUNDBITE) (German) SCHULD FISH FARMER, ACHIM HUECK, SAYING: "What's really pressing now is that there's no money coming in. I have a few thousand fixed costs every month - really, money has to go into the bank. And now there's nothing. I had orders for today, this hotel ordered 50 fish, that hotel... I supplied the whole Ahr valley down to Sinzig. I drove through the whole Eifel, up to the Belgium border with fish, live transport. There was my slaughterhouse, that's where I did the butchering. The smokehouse was here. Everything is gone. I can't do anything. What can I do? I can't do anything, I can't do anything. I'm standing here now like, well, what?" RIVER AHR RUBBLE ON RIVER DIGGER HUECK EXAMINING TERRAIN (SOUNDBITE) (German) SCHULD RESIDENT, HERMANN LARSCHEID, SAYING: "I carried every stone here. In 1970 there was no crane, so we had to unload in the evening. It went up to here, then it was stopping. Fortunately, we still have upstairs. If you want, you can go up the stairs." VARIOUS OF DAMAGE INSIDE LARSCHEID'S HOUSE LARSCHEID SHOWING DAMAGE IN HIS HOUSE HOUSE DAMAGES, MUD COVERING ROOMS IN HOUSE (SOUNDBITE) (German) SCHULD RESIDENT, HERMANN LARSCHEID, SHOWING THE ESCAPE ROUTE, SAYING: "I had to go down with the child. Then we went out of the window. We went out the back window. Over the roof, over the other roof, and they took us out the back with the tractor." MUD COVERING ALL ROOMS (SOUNDBITE) (German) SCHULD RESIDENT, HERMANN LARSCHEID, SHOWING THE DAMAGE AND ESCAPE SAYING: "We went out over the roof here. Here, from back there, through the window, over the pointy one and then over the other roof. And then they brought us down. Here was all water, all water, up to the top. If you had fallen in, you would have been gone, there was such pressure on it." VARIOUS OF DAMAGE TO THE HOUSE ON THE OUTSIDE TRACTOR COVERED IN MUD VARIOUS OF MAN OPERATING DIGGER RUBBLE (SOUNDBITE) (German) SCHULD RESIDENT, HERMANN LARSCHEID, TALKING ABOUT MAKING DO WITH THE HOUSE AS IT STANDS, SAYING: "Yes, we have to. There are people who no longer have any houses. Down in the village, they have nothing. They are gone the two houses. And the others are all uninhabitable. We still are lucky up here." VARIOUS OF NEIGHBOURS CHECKING DAMAGES DIGGER DRIVING PAST CAMERA NEIGHBOURS CHECKING DAMAGES (SOUNDBITE) (German) SCHULD RESIDENT, HERMANN LARSCHEID, SAYING: "Yes, well, we will have to rebuild it. All else is of no use. We can't just leave everything." NEIGHBOURS CARRYING FURNITURE AWAY HOUSE SURROUNDED BY RUBBLE VARIOUS OF NEIGHBOURS CLEANING HOUSE AERIAL VIEW OF SCHULD BRIDGE COVERED IN RUBBLE VARIOUS OF NEIGHBOURS WORKING ON DAMAGE
- Embargoed: 30th July 2021 15:58
- Keywords: CLIMATE FLUT KLIMA UEBERSCHWEMMUNG. catastrophy debris extreme weather flood
- Location: SCHULD NEAR AHRWEILER, GERMANY
- City: SCHULD NEAR AHRWEILER, GERMANY
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Disaster/Accidents,Europe,Floods,Editors' Choice
- Reuters ID: LVA001EM3ACEF
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Achim Hueck is in a state of shock as wanders through the pile of rubble that used to be his home in the German town of Schuld.
Hueck is still trying to process the fact that everything he owns and had just invested in is gone. His newly renovated fish farm, which was supposed to be his pension, was washed away by the heavy floods that swept through towns and villages in the western German states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, Belgium as well as the Netherlands.
"I had just put another 35,000 euros into it over the last two weeks. Everything, new water pipes laid. I still have to pay the bills," he told Reuters with tears in his eyes.
"I've been investing a lot lately because I wanted to make provisions for my old age," he added.
The whole town of Schuld lays in ruins, and Hueck said he was just happy to be alive.
"I just managed to get out myself. Luckily I still had two trailers loaded with fish barrels. And then I said to (my partner) Andrea: out, out, out! It was rising really fast, it started from the path back here. There was a path, there were ponds, lots of them up there. Fishing hut, toilet facilities, everything gone. All gone. The fish, all gone. But they can be replaced..." he said.
In Germany alone, 117 people have died in what is the country's worst mass loss of life in years.
Hueck's neighbour Hermann Larscheid literally built the family home himself in the seventies and has his grandchildren staying with them - their house has also been destroyed by the floods
"I carried every stone here. In 1970 there was no crane, so we had to unload in the evening. It went up to here, then it was stopping," he said as he showed Reuters around the devastation. "Fortunately, we still have upstairs. If you want, you can go up the stairs."
"I had to go down with the child. Then we went out of the window. We went out the back window. Over the roof, over the other roof, and they took us out the back with the tractor," he said. "Here was all water, all water, up to the top. If you had fallen in, you would have been gone, there was such pressure on it."
Larscheid said they were lucky to still have a house and would have to make do with it as it stood at the moment and then try and rebuild it. "We have to. There are people who no longer have any houses. Down in the village, they have nothing. They are gone the two houses. And the others are all uninhabitable. We still are lucky up here."
The death toll is the highest of any natural catastrophe since a deadly North Sea flood in 1962 that killed around 340 people. The crash of a high-speed ICE train in 1998 killed 101.
Floods at the Elbe river in 2002, which at the time were billed by media as "once-in-a-century floods", killed 21 people in eastern Germany and more than 100 across the wider Central European region.
(Production: Fanny Brodersen, Martin Schilcht, Stephan Schepers and Elena Gyldenkerne) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None