© DPAWater levels rise in Hildesheim, Germany
As storms continue to batter much of the country on Wednesday, one woman has gone missing, one town has raised the official disaster alert, and another town is considering partial evacuation due to the weather.
A 69-year-old woman in Wernigerode, Saxony-Anhalt has disappeared amid heavy rains near a river by her home, police reported on Wednesday. Authorities said it could be possible that she fell into the river on Tuesday, as the water level there has greatly increased.
The district of Goslar in the Harz mountain region of Lower Saxony also on Wednesday officially sounded the disaster alert due to flooding caused by rainstorms in the area.
In the small town of Bad Harzburg, the train station has been blocked off due to the tracks being underwater. The water level on many streets there also reached at least 20 centimetres high. Around 350 firefighters have been working there, and police are calling for more backup.
In the city of Goslar, serious flooding in the streets - as pictured below - has also largely blocked off the city centre, and a hotel as well as a senior centre have been evacuated.
According to the German Weather Service (DWD),
the amount of rain so far this week in the Harz area has in some places reached or even surpassed the level of precipitation typical for the whole month of July.Meanwhile on the Baltic Sea island of Rügen, two vacationers sustained life-threatening injuries in a car accident, which police suspect was caused by the heavy rain.
