Looks really bad. The worst I’ve read is that 1300 in Germany are still unaccounted for. There’s also severe damage in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
The crazy thing is that that kind of rainfall (100-150mm in 24 hours) would barely make the news in Taiwan. The heavy rainfalls in the past couple of months were close to that in like an hour. Not to mention the typhoons.
I did a research project into climate change and the risk it poses to banks in Switzerland. Switzerland had experience flooding in the past few years.
After digging through all the data, the issue wasn’t really climate change. Average rainfall didn’t increase at a statistically significant level.
The issue was….the Swiss are building too many houses in places they shouldnt. Near river banks and in the country side where green land used to be. It was something like new builds in certain areas in the past decade was like 200% more than the past few decades.
What was driving this increase? Well, the Swiss were losing money leaving it in the banks. Interest rates were negative so it drove the Swiss to invest money into real estate into the country side. What’s even more illogical is that the Swiss are leaving those places in droves to the cities so no one even lives in those places.
So basically, Swiss banks, are at risk of massive losses from flooding from all the mortgages and loans for land development in places they should build
How sad. I know this is a serious topic but I just can’t help but notice how astonishingly beautiful the first photo is……
I’m sorry I know people died but why would they build them there? Right in the riverbed, its asking to get flooded. Looks like something a third world country would do. Guess Europe is lucky they don’t get many natural disasters.
Look at that.
Poor planning, corruption, bad environment. Repeat.
Blame Volkswagen maybe? Haha. Expect more of this, the rest of the world has being seeing this for decades. Germany can be thankful they arent a tiny island being flooded by the rising ocean. Meanwhile, Lets continue diesels and ccp cooperation. Tools, just like the rest of the world governments.
Once again. Sad, but not surprising.
Yeah totally. It seems like a third rate typhoon could wipe an entire country out and I don’t think European buildings can sustain any half-serious earthquake.
Its bad. But look at all that decent soil being so thick. Many places would kill for that opportunity!
Taiwan has bigger slides each year in the mountains but its also “bed” rock and not often populated. Perhaps in regards to lowland water diversion, europe could benefit from a bit of infrastructure upgrades. Granted inland is much harder than the lucky geography we enjoy here just running out to the ocean. But large amounts of time, energy and money have completely transformed taiwans lowlands as to allow quick run off. At some expense (destroyed water tables, water shortages, soil erosion, compaction and contamination concentrations). There is likely a happy medium somewhere in between these 2 
I do not know the reason for this exact place, but EU is old and many homes have been there a long time and never had past problems and just recently. Me living in Taiwan, also wonder this here in Kao as some people live in areas that are flood prone but it’s complex problem and lot related to being not rich enough to live in a better place or being born there. Taiwan has lots of earthquakes and I wonder why people to choose to live in high rise house as I live in a 2/3 floor house but not everyone can do this or think earthquake danger is not a major risk and accept the risk so this case maybe they also thought it was low risk.
Newly built high rises are definitely safer than old ass 2-3 floor buildings. But I get your point about the complexity of the problem.
I think I’ve explained why way above.
Low to negative interest rates in Europe is fueling investments in anything they can find such as real estate and land development. Europe is a developed place, not much land to develop besides the ones previous people understood was a bad idea. And the cost of a new build is cheaper the. renewing old buildings due to European bureaucracy and regulations making such efforts expensive and slow.
In the Netherlands which literally is the floodplain they expect this and plan for it over hundreds of years. The same river has its banks, and then another set of banks 500 meters back. So there is an area that is intended to be flooded, and no one builds there. I Don’t imagine there was reckless building on flood plains in the area that was hit, but yes it got hit. As for ‘European Regulations’ I think taking a step back and giving rivers space is a good call in general. It wouldn’t have helped in this flood as it was already a backwater tributary. If those rains were usual those houses wouldnt have been there.
There’s always been periodical great floods in Europe. Just unfortunate to get caught in one for sure .
They are talking about pucains and Galway in picture quiz, take a look (not my doing, like I didn’t introduce the theme)
As my project was looking at risks for banks, the real problem is that these banks are willing to give out these loans and mortgages for new builds because investors demand it and banks are able to profit from it.
Some of the things I’ve suggested is having the banks do their own due diligence and land surveys of places they are financing. These are assets on their books that could just be wiped out in situations like this making them more risky than on paper from a financial standpoint.
Another is to have these reports for investors with risks of such commercial and residential properties in different areas.
I brought up regulations because one of the solutions was to put more capital in reviving older towns already there instead of building more on the outskirts of town where green space was. Lots of regulations make such projects expensive and not viable from a investors POV.
Lots of these old town can be made more green. Most of them get horrible energy efficiency for example. If the capital was flowing to reviving established towns into more modern, it could be a better solution for the economy an environment. Not to mention many of these new builds are empty on the outskirts of town when Europeans are flocking to cities.
Ole
For sure Andrew. Hopefully this flood puts a bit of momentum behind that. Can’t believe I’m agreeing with you emphatically 
this would be for new homes, but most of the people have been there a long time, and some homes built 500 years ago in Erftstadt have lasted so this flood is like 500 year thing OR: So they question is floods becoming worse world wide due to global climate change.
Local Journalist Says Erftstadt Area Has Never Seen Such Devastating Floods : NPR
Well Canada just had a heatwave that would be something like 1 in a million years without any climate change influence . That is kind of insane .
How do you make this conclusion?
Experts at the Potsdam Institute and elsewhere believe the rapid heating in the Arctic and decline of sea ice is making the jet stream wiggle in large, meandering patterns, so-called Rossby resonance waves, trapping high- and low-pressure weather systems in one location for a longer time.
…
This theory remains contested
The sad part is that 4 days before the floods precise predictions were made and forwarded to local authorities. Those failed to inform the public properly.
Loss of life was avoidable.