Climate Change 2013

Entire villages washed away: At least 23 dead and 50 missing in India as days of torrential rains wreak havoc and leave 10,000 pilgrims stranded on a mountainside

• Floods in northern India have washed away whole buildings, roads and vehicles
  
• More than 10,000 pilgrims were left stranded on a mountain pass as many roads become impassible
  

At least 23 people have died and 50 more remain missing after torrential downpours in northern India swept away roads, buildings and vehicles.

One building collapse today killed at least three people who were washed away when an entire apartment block toppled into a river, a government spokesman said.

Most of the destruction is concentrated in the state of Uttarakhand, where the Ganges river and its tributaries are flowing at dangerously high levels. 

• The River Ganges and tributaries are flowing above danger level in several areas of Uttarakhand state

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Experts Warn Extreme Weather Is Growing More Intense, More Frequent.

Sea Levels Expected To Rise Up To Two Feet By 2050

Scientists and experts gathered at the eighth annual energy conference at the New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury on Thursday to discuss extreme weather patterns, which they say are growing in intensity and frequency.

“We’re seeing an increase in the extreme events and increase in damage associated with them as we’ve become more vulnerable,” said Louis Uccellini, Director of the National Weather Service.

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An unusually wet spring has swollen the Danube, the Elbe and several of their tributaries across Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Hungary, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, disrupting rail and road traffic, and causing damage that preliminary estimates have predicted will reach several billion dollars.

The authorities in Budapest had declared a state of emergency Tuesday, anticipating that the Danube’s water level would reach record highs in the north of the country. The Danube was expected to peak at 8.95 meters, or about 29 feet, Sunday night or Monday morning. That would exceed the record of 8.6 meters, set in 2006, but remain shy of the 9.3-meter height of flood walls protecting downtown Budapest.

Hungary deployed 7,000 soldiers, supported by several thousand volunteers, to reinforce dikes along the river. State television showed Prime Minister Viktor Orban at work near the city of Esztergom, north of Budapest.

“The flood is approaching the heart of the country, Budapest,” Mr. Orban told reporters Sunday. “The next two days will be decisive, because the danger will affect the place where the largest number of people live and the most valuables are at risk.”

In the eastern German city of Magdeburg, the Elbe rose faster and higher than expected. The authorities asked more than 23,000 people to leave their homes as the waters reached 7.46 meters, almost 24.5 feet, on Sunday.

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Germany’s swollen Elbe River breached another levee early on Monday, forcing authorities to evacuate 10 villages and shut down one of the country’s main railways amid some of the worst flooding central Europe has seen in years.

The swollen Elbe River breached another levee early Monday on its relentless march toward the North Sea, forcing German authorities to evacuate 10 villages and shut down one of the country’s main railway routes.

As the surge from the Elbe pushed into rural eastern Germany, there was some relief further upstream as the river slipped back from record levels in Magdeburg, the capital of Saxony-Anhalt state.

To the south, the Danube hit a record high Sunday evening in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, then began to ease back Monday. Officials said the city escaped significant damage, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban said soldiers and rescue workers would shift their focus further south.

Weeks of heavy rain this spring have sent the Elbe, the Danube and other rivers such as the Vltava and the Saale overflowing their banks, causing extensive damage in central and southern Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary. At least 21 flood-related deaths have been reported.

The German city of Magdeburg grappled over the weekend with water levels more than 16 feet (5 meters) above normal, though the Elbe retreated by about a foot (30 centimeters) on Monday. More than 23,000 residents had to leave their homes on Sunday, but officials said an electricity substation in the city was no longer in danger of flooding – which would have made the situation worse by cutting off power to the drainage pumps.

But further downstream, a levee at Fischbeck, west of Berlin, was breached overnight, prompting officials to evacuate 10 villages in the area.

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Floodwaters from heavy rains swamped five countries in Europe and threatened others, leaving at least eight people dead and nine missing.

Germany, Austria, Poland, Switzerland and the Czech Republic have been affected, with officials in the Czech capital, Prague, closing the subway system, evacuating thousands of homes and warning other people not to come into the city. Slovakia and Hungary were preparing flood defenses on the Danube River.

In Germany, rain levels that reached record highs in May contributed to widespread flooding across southern and eastern parts of the country.

In the southern state of Bavaria, more than 20,000 firefighters and other rescue workers were battling rising water levels, especially in the southeast. The historic cities of Passau and Rosenheim declared states of emergency.

Water in Passau, which is surrounded by three rivers, was at record levels, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said. “The situation is … dramatic.”

Rescue workers and volunteers were filling sandbags, erecting temporary water barriers and helping to evacuate homes Monday morning, according to Passau’s crisis management team.

The German Army deployed more than 1,000 soldiers to Saxony and 600 to Bavaria to help with rescue and protection measures, and the air force sent helicopters to help with evacuations, officials said. Chancellor Angela Merkel planned to travel to the worst-hit areas on Tuesday.

In the eastern German state of Thuringia, more than 7,000 people had to spend the night in temporary shelters.

In the Czech Republic, six people were dead and five were missing, despite more than 14,000 firefighters evacuating the homes of 7,000 people and carrying out 256 rescues, said national Fire and Rescue service spokeswoman Nicole Zaoralová.

Czech officials declared a state of emergency and closed the subway system in Prague for the first time since devastating floods struck in 2002. People were urged not to travel to the capital, as waters of the Vltava River reached critical levels and threatened the city’s ancient center. “The situation in Prague is still not stabilized,” Zaoralová said.

“We have problems in the whole area of the Czech Republic, especially Bohemia,” an Interior Ministry spokesman said. “We are hoping that it will not be as bad as it was in 2002.”

In Austria, two people died, including a cleanup worker killed in a mudslide near Salzburg. Three more were reported missing.

Train lines in many parts of northwest Austria were suspended Sunday due to landslides. In just two days, Austria had experienced as much rain as it normally would in two months, the Austrian meteorological center said.

This weekend saw many southern German towns struck particularly hard. “In the past three days, more than 400 liters of rain per square meter [about 10 gallons per square foot] were measured in many regions that border the Alps,” meteorologist Klaus Lessmann from German public broadcaster ZDF said.

The German Weather Service, DWD, reported Monday that Germany had not seen such extreme soil moisture in the past 50 years.

“Many fields are completely saturated and cannot hold more water,” Johanna Anger from the DWD said.

Many residents in affected towns and villages were without power overnight and as a precautionary measure, many schools were kept closed on Monday.

Evacuations were also taking place in Poland and Switzerland.

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Authorities are bracing for more chaos across Central Europe as heavy rain continues to pound the region.

Rail lines were closed in the Czech Republic and homes were evacuated. Flood barriers were erected in Prague for the first time since 2002, when the capital was crippled, with whole districts under water and animals drowned in the local zoo.

The Danube and other Austrian rivers have flooded, swamping entire villages, with some houses covered to the first floor. The fire brigade worked overnight to pump out cellars and important infrastructure buildings and to keep the roads clear. An electric power station is under water in Salzburg.

In Germany, Passau is intersected by three rivers, including the Donau, which has already burst, covering streets and a bridge with water.

Rain, up to 15 litres per square metre in volume, is forecast to continue across most of Bavaria and Saxony

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PASSAU, Germany (AP) — Swollen rivers gushed into the old section of Passau in southeast Germany on Monday, as water rose in the city to levels not seen in more than five centuries.

The city was one of the worst hit by flooding that has spread across a large area of central Europe following heavy rainfall in recent days.

At least eight people were reported to have died and nine were missing due to floods in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

“The situation is extremely dramatic,” Herbert Zillinger, a spokesman for Passau’s crisis center, told The Associated Press.

Much of the city was inaccessible on foot and the electricity supply was shut down as a precaution, he said. Rescuers were using boats to evacuate residents from flooded parts of the city. Authorities in the afternoon evacuated a prison that was in danger of being flooded, moving 60 inmates to two other nearby facilities on higher ground.

But with water from the Danube, Inn and Ilz rivers relentlessly pouring into the city, water was advancing into previously dry streets – in one case going from dry to ankle-deep within half an hour. Markers set in 1954, when the city suffered its worst flooding in living memory, have disappeared beneath the rising water.

The German news agency dpa said the water levels were the highest recorded since 1501 in Passau, a city of 50,000 people that dates from before Roman times.

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Thirty-mile long ice jam causes devastating floods in Alaskan town as hundreds of residents are forced to flee.

• Ice jam is when
• water builds up behind ice and then over flows
• Most of the chunks of ice have already broken off, giving hope to the hundreds of displaced residents
• Alaska National Guard called in to help with evacuations
  ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before,’ one official said. ‘And I don’t think these people here (have) either. The ice jam is amazing’

A huge 30-mile block of ice his causing chaos in an Alaskan town as water has been flowing onto the land.The colossal river ice jam, which is when water builds up behind a block of ice, was starting to rotate Wednesday as water finally chewed ice chunks away from the stubborn, frozen mass after most of the residents were forced to flee from the rising water.An aerial survey Wednesday afternoon revealed chunks of ice have broken off at the front of the 30-mile ice jam on the Yukon River, National Weather Service hydrologist Ed Plumb said.

That means the jam will move soon and waters will begin to recede in the waterlogged town of Galena, 20 miles upriver.

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