Speaker 1:
The most
dramatic flood disaster of the 20th century struck Austria in the Summer of
1954. 40,000 people had to be saved. The property damages went into millions.
Not less destructive: The flood in the year 1960 which inundated half of Europe
from England via France to Italy. The storm tide in the Netherlands in 1953
claimed he largest amount of human lives. 2,000 deaths had to be lamented after
dam breaks. Real series of flood disasters are appearing in Europe and
worldwide within the last ten years. Number and extent of the inundations have
quadrupled in comparison with the sixties, be that in the Benelux, in France or
in Germany. The pictures of devastation and human sorrow regularly return. It
was the Rhine which flooded large portions of Germany shortly before Christmas
1993, including Coblenz, Bonn and Cologne. Several ten thousands
of people had to be brought to safety there as well.
Speaker 2:
The water
in the Rhine still rises with a speed from 5 to 6 cm per hour. Worse than in Bonn
is the situation in the city of Cologne, 20 km downstream.
Speaker 1:
Historical
water levels. Desperate attempts to control the force of nature. And in Italy, only
one year later, this happens again. After the death of 64 people and property
damages of one and a half million Euro, the Italian media talk about the
biblical flood and the apocalypse. The Governor at the time, Berlusconi, had to
listen to complaints and reproaches. The alarm had been late. The civil defense
had failed. Three years later, there is word again of the "Flood of the
century".
Speaker 2:
This time
the area of the “flood of the century” extends from the rivers Oder and March
over Poland and Czechia to the border of Austria. Czechia, July 7th:
within few days, 600 mm of precipitation fall, as much as in Vienna in a year.
A third of the country is flooded.
Speaker 1:
40 per cent
of the national territory in Poland, as well as the entire town of Breslau, is
under water. The balance sheet of victims was dramatic, there as well. Dozens
of people were dragged along by the raging high tides along with their houses.
Speaker 3:
One was
able to see houses and people and two, three minutes later, there were no more houses
with people. There is a list in a Polish newspaper that is listing 49 persons that
have drowned.
Speaker 1:
Rescue
teams then fought against the high tides on the German side of the shore of the
river Oder day and night. Experts have claimed for a long time that
interventions in nature and the climate warming are to blame. These warnings
remained without effect because the flood disasters continue to further increase.