Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on May 21, 2022
🛑 In The Cities of Paderborn and Lippstadt
Leaving 50 injured and ten seriously hurt by 80mph winds as trees are uprooted and houses lose their roofsIncredible storm left ‘path of destruction’, with people hit by falling roof panels‘Countless’ houses’ roofs were torn off and many trees remain on top of carsRainfall up to 25L per square metre each hour, with storms causing huge damageTorrid conditions set to hit east of the country overnight after assaults on west.
❖❖❖[Luke Chapter 21፡25-26]❖❖❖
“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.”
❖❖❖[Lukas 21:25-26]❖❖❖
Und es werden Zeichen geschehen an Sonne und Mond und Sternen; und auf Erden wird den Leuten bange sein, und sie werden zagen, und das Meer und die Wassermengen werden brausen, und Menschen werden verschmachten vor Furcht und vor Warten der Dinge, die kommen sollen auf Erden; denn auch der Himmel Kräfte werden sich bewegen.
💭 Two Dead, Four Missing after Explosion Rocks German Chemicals Site
One person is dead and four are missing after an explosion rocked an industrial park in the western German city of Leverkusen on Tuesday, sending dark plumes of smoke into the sky.
A fire at the Chempark site, which includes chemicals companies Bayer (BAYGn.DE) and Lanxess (LXSG.DE), had been extinguished after an explosion at 9.40 a.m. local time (0740 GMT), park operator Currenta said.
“We are deeply shaken by the tragic death of one colleague,” Chempark chief Lars Friedrich said in a series of tweets, adding that four more people were missing.
Emergency services have rescued 12 injured people and a further four who were seriously injured, said the city of Leverkusen, which lies north of Cologne. In addition, five people were missing, it said.
Welt TV, citing the city’s security authority, reported that one person was dead. It was unclear whether that was one of the missing.
The area around the site was sealed off and surrounded by emergency vehicles.
Police asked residents living nearby to stay indoors and shut doors and windows. Currenta said they should also turn off air conditioning systems while it measured the air around the site for possible toxic gases.
Currenta said it was not clear what had caused the explosion and subsequent fire. More information will be available at 1200 GMT.
Sirens and emergency alerts on the German civil protection agency’s mobile phone app warned citizens of “extreme danger”.
Leverkusen is less than 50 km (30 miles) from the region that was hit last week by catastrophic floods which left at least 180 people dead.
Several nearby motorways were closed, and police said drivers should take detours to avoid the area.
More than 30 companies operate at the Chempark site in Leverkusen, including Covestro (1COV.DE), Bayer, Lanxess and Arlanxeo, according to its website.
Bayer and Lanxess in 2019 sold Chempark operator Currenta to Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MQG.AX) for an enterprise value of 3.5 billion euros ($4.12 billion).
💭 Climate Scientists Shocked by Scale of Floods in Germany
Deluge raises fears human-caused disruption is making extreme weather even worse than predicted
The intensity and scale of the floods in Germany this week have shocked climate scientists, who did not expect records to be broken this much, over such a wide area or this soon.
After the deadly heatwave in the US and Canada, where temperatures rose above 49.6C two weeks ago, the deluge in central Europe has raised fears that human-caused climate disruption is making extreme weather even worse than predicted.
Precipitation records were smashed across a wide area of the Rhine basin on Wednesday, with devastating consequences. At least 58 people have been killed, tens of thousands of homes flooded and power supplies disrupted.
Parts of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia were inundated with 148 litres of rain per sq metre within 48 hours in a part of Germany that usually sees about 80 litres in the whole of July.
The city of Hagen declared a state of emergency after the Volme burst its banks and its waters rose to levels not seen more than four times a century.
The most striking of more than a dozen records was set at the Köln-Stammheim station, which was deluged in 154mm of rain over 24 hours, obliterating the city’s previous daily rainfall high of 95mm.
Climate scientists have long predicted that human emissions would cause more floods, heatwaves, droughts, storms and other forms of extreme weather, but the latest spikes have surpassed many expectations.
“I am surprised by how far it is above the previous record,” Dieter Gerten, professor of global change climatology and hydrology at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said. “We seem to be not just above normal but in domains we didn’t expect in terms of spatial extent and the speed it developed.”
Gerten, who grew up in a village in the affected area, said it occasionally flooded, but not like this week. Previous summer downpours have been as heavy, but have hit a smaller area, and previous winter storms have not raised rivers to such dangerous levels. “This week’s event is totally untypical for that region. It lasted a long time and affected a wide area,” he said.
Scientists will need more time to assess the extent to which human emissions made this storm more likely, but the record downpour is in keeping with broader global trends.
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