Body of fifth victim is recovered as Germany counts the cost of floods

Rescuers found the nearly submerged vehicle and recovered the woman’s body

A car washed away by floodwater rests on a well, in Rudersberg, Germany, Monday, June 3, 2024 ((c) Copyright 2024, dpa (www.dpa.de). Alle Rechte vorbehalten)

A fifth person has been confirmed dead in German floods.

A woman's body has been recovered from a car that sank into floodwater in Bavaria, police said on Tuesday.

Persistent heavy rain led to widespread flooding over the weekend. While the situation has now eased in southwestern Germany, water levels remained high in parts of Bavaria, particularly on the Danube and in the Rosenheim area in the southeast. Some major railway lines, including several leading to Munich, were still blocked or disrupted.

The bodies of four people who died in the floods were found Sunday and Monday, three of them in inundated basements.

Police reported the fifth victim Tuesday in the small town of Markt Rettenbach. They said a driver who apparently had ignored barriers blocking a flooded road on Monday slipped off the road into a field and called emergency services to alert them that her car was filling with water.

Rescuers found the nearly submerged vehicle and recovered the woman's body.

The German government said on Monday that deadly flooding served as a warning to keep up the fight against climate change, hours after an official advisory council said the state had fallen behind its greenhouse gas targets.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said during a visit to affected areas on Monday that federal emergency services and the military were being deployed.

“We must not neglect the task of halting man-made climate change. This is another reminder that must be taken away from this disaster,” he said.

Economy and climate minister Robert Habeck, during a visit of affected regions on Sunday, also noted that climate change was causing severe weather events.

Cargo ships park at the bank of the river Rhine near the BASF chemical plant in Ludwigshafen, Germany (Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

However, a panel of government climate advisors said on Monday that Germany is likely to miss its own 2030 greenhouse gas targets, contradicting Habeck’s projections in March and calling for new measures.

Germany‘s Climate Protection Act will require the government to take corrective measures for the 2030 target if the expert panel confirms its findings next year.

Amid first signs of the flooding‘s economic impact, German utility EnBW said its hydroelectric plants along the Neckar river and its tributaries were either running at reduced capacity or were out of operation, particularly small stations.

The company, which is based in southern Germany, said this was partly due to the large amount of floating debris.

Uniper said it took preparatory measures to shut its Irsching power plant if necessary as a dam of the Paar tributary of the Danube threatened to burst.

A cormorant sits on a street lamp as the river Neckar has left its banks in Heidelberg, Germany, Monday, June 3 (AP)

Earlier on Monday, Audi cancelled some production shifts on Monday at its main Ingolstadt plant as some staff could not come into work, though the factory itself was not affected.

The early and the late shifts assembling the A3 and Q2 vehicle models were cancelled, the Volkswagen-owned luxury carmaker said in an alert to staff on Sunday, which was made available to Reuters on Monday.

Germany‘s farmers association flagged massive damage to fields and buildings in the sector, saying it was too early for a more precise estimate.

Navigation authorities earlier on Monday warned that parts of the river Rhine in southern Germany, an important route for commodities and fuels, were closed to cargo shipping for lack of overhead space to sail under bridges.

Rail company Deutsche Bahn late on Sunday advised against travelling in southern Germany.